Megha Aryan, OP
With the introduction of state-of-the-art technology, security checks at airports have become hassle-free and much less troublesome. Sunday POST zooms in on the best practices that Bhubaneswar airport authorities need to adopt.
Approximately, 4 billion people around the world travel by air which drives home the point that flying is not a rich man’s business. Safety must be a major concern and the challenge for passengers and airport security guards is tough. But the biggest annoyance when travelled by air is the queuing time, followed by the need to remove electronic items, restrictions on liquids and requirements to take off belts and boots. And to give almost an hour and a half to get done with security procedure is much more to test the patience of travellers.
“I don’t think that Bhubaneswar airport is incapable of implementing new technologies like biometric or full body scanning. After all, we have a brilliant infrastructure. We handle more than 4 million passengers in a year and in recent years there has been sharp rise of 19.9 per cent traffic growth at the airport, which makes it one of the busiest in the country”, said Suresh Chandra Hota, Director, Biju Patnaik International Airport.
Sunday POST traces some of the latest technology to be used in a few days to come around the world. Below are some countries that believe in keeping time than killing time at security check-points at airports:
Dubai
The world’s busiest airport, Dubai International Airport, is doing away with its security counters and introducing virtual fish to verify your identity. Instead of waiting in line for security kiosks or e-gates, passengers will be able to walk through a virtual aquarium tunnel in which 80 in-built cameras will scan their faces. The role of the fish is to capture the passengers’ attention and thus their biometrics.
The fish is a sort of entertainment and something new for the traveller but, at the end of the day, it attracts the vision of the travellers to different corners in the tunnel for the cameras to capture his/her face print. The first biometric borders will appear by late 2018 at Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3, with other terminals being fitted with them by 2020. You will have to be pre-register to pass through the tunnel, with 3D face-scanning kiosks set up at locations around the airport to do so. When passengers reach the end of the tunnel, their biometrics will be matched to their digital profile and they will either receive a green message reading ‘have a nice trip’ or a red alert if a security officer is required to perform further checks.
The screens can be changed from ‘aquarium mode’ to show other themed scenes, or even adverts. It is the airport’s latest measure aimed at speeding up the security process to cope with an ever-increasing influx of travellers.
Earlier the check points already managed to cut down time spent at the security counters to a mere five seconds, but that was not enough. Dubai is the world’s busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic, with more than 80 million travellers passing through it last year. According to the General Civil Aviation, that number is expected to reach 124 million by 2020.
Australia
Kangaroos are planning to adopt a new contactless passenger identification system that would eliminate the need for passport scanners, paper landing cards and manned immigration desks, the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection has announced.
The new system, which is set to be rolled out by 2020, will use facial recognition technology and fingerprint scanners to identify passengers as they pass through Australian airports. People arriving in the country would no longer be required to show their passports and desks fronted by immigration officers would be replaced by automated electronic stations.
The new process would go beyond the current SmartGate electronic border processing system currently in place at Australian airports, which matches the face of a passenger with the image stored in the microchip of their e-passport.
The government has piloted a version of the system in July at Canberra Airport, which offers limited flights to Singapore and Wellington. It would be introduced at Sydney and Melbourne airports in November, with the rollout hoping to be completed by March 2019. It is unclear exactly how the new contactless system would work. In fact, even the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection seems unsure how its new system will actually function.
The latest development is the most ambitious part of the government which will allow for a “fast, seamless self-processing experience and enable border control officers to concentrate on passengers-of-interest”.
While airports in Britain have yet to use such advanced facial recognition systems, the introduction of full-body security scanners, which are used at around 19 airports in the country including London Gatwick, Heathrow, City and Manchester have sparked controversy, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission saying they breach passengers’ rights to privacy.
Earlier this month, the US Customs and Border Protection announced facial recognition software would be used at all international airports in the US, as part of the country’s plan to crack down on identity fraud.
USA
Passengers are moving through Newark Liberty International Airport, in New Jersey, USA, security checkpoints a lot quicker since the installation of new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) smart lanes and similar relief is on the way at John F Kennedy International Airport.
These screening lanes can move people through more quickly; about a 30 per cent improvement has been recorded. United Airlines funded the 17 Automated Screening Lanes, which use modern technology and larger bins, in partnership with the TSA.
All a person has to do once enter into the screening area is to load the luggage in the bin and carry it one of the five stations. The conveyor belt will push the bin in the X-ray machine for further examination of the luggage. Each bin has an RFID radio frequency identification chip for tracking. To retrieve their belongings a person has to go on the other side of the X-ray machine.
By the end of May, passengers at John F Kennedy airport will get 19 of the smart lanes. It’s not yet clear if passenger confusion about how to use the new screening system is preventing a reduction in manpower. The smart lanes were an outgrowth of major embarrassing backups at airports during the last spring break.
The TSA is deploying these automated screening lanes at 21 of the nation’s largest airports in effort to speed up wait times but also reduce congestion for terrorist
targeting.
India
After the 1999 Kandahar hijacking India tighten its Airport security, since then there is no looking back. With years Indian Airports have developed the trust in passengers by making significant improvements. And as a result, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi has been ranked world’s second best airport, which handles more than 40 million passengers annually. Meanwhile, GMR’s Hyderabad International Airport has secured first position in the world in the prestigious Airports Council International (ACI)-ASQ survey in the 5-15 million passengers per annum (MPPA) category for the year 2016. The survey shows that Hyderabad Airport has steadily improved its score from 4.4 in 2009 to 4.9 in 2016 (measured on a scale of 1 to 5).
The major threats at Indian airports are terrorist threats and narcotics. Another problem that some airports face is the proliferation of slums around the airport boundaries in places like Mumbai. Before boarding, additional searching of hand luggage is likely. Moreover, other than this, the CISF has many other duties in context of aviation security. And amidst all these issues, adopting new scientific technologies in every airport in India seems a bit tricky task.
Suresh Chandra Hota, director of Biju Patnaik International Airport, told Sunday POST that he doesn’t find adopting new scientific technologies much difficult if it comes in a proper way.
Hota said: “I don’t think BPIA in any aspect is incapable of implementing the new technologies like biometric or full body scanning. After all, we have a brilliant infrastructure. We handle more than 4 million passengers in a year and in recent years there has been sharp raise of 19.9 per cent traffic growth in Bhubaneswar Airport, which makes it one of the busiest airports in India. And if schools, colleges, offices and others can welcome the biometric technology then why can’t we take it on the larger level, where it is much needed.”
“If the latest invention is saving time then why not grab it soon,” he said.
Some of the popular and busiest airports in India are deploying alternatives to do away with hectic security checks. Currently, the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is the only airport in India that uses biometric technology. The ‘express check-in technology’ is being introduced recently, for some airports of the country. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in India has confirmed plans to deploy an advance technology at the country’s airports to enhance services for passengers. The security force aims to replace the boarding pass collection system at Indian airports with new biometric technology.
It reportedly aims to set-up the system at 59 airports across the country, as well as civil facilities that are slated to come under the CISF’s ‘unified command’ in the future. In addition, the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation intends to install multi-layered Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) in a phased manner, starting with 16 airports across the company. Heavily guarded by the CISF, the technology is being installed to support growing air traffic in the country and enhance airport security. The system is currently available at airports in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
It is expected by November the full body scanner will make its come back for the third time at Delhi airport for another round of trial run. During the last trial, in December 2016, the security agency raised concerns over the body scanner not being able to adapt to the Indian way of dressing and giving false alarm whenever a woman wearing a saree goes through it.
The most prominent issue raised by CISF was the scanner raising an alarm if a woman is wearing a saree or men have folded shirt sleeves. It failed to go through with layers of clothes. During the last trial run, the machine failed to notice a pen, a wallet and a handkerchief in 10,000 scans conducted over a month. Among the passengers scanned at the trials, 30 per cent were women. The BCAS has asked manufacturers to configure the machines in a way that the images don’t reveal body parts, after objections were raised by passengers over X-ray images that scanners produce at airports across the world.
Contrary to the previous scanner, the recent one has advance features that can detect several targets such as metallic and non-metallic weapons, standard and home-made explosives (sheet and bulk), liquids, gels, plastics, powders, metals, ceramics, and others solids.
A survey conducted during the first phase of trial run revealed that while 90% of the passengers felt the new technology will be helpful, only 40 per cent of them volunteered to go through the scanner.
According to airport officials, the entire scanning process, which does not take more than a minute, also comes with privacy filters, the use of which is optional for the official manning the machine. The scanner can reveal plastic and liquid explosives, composite weapons, plastic and metal guns, drugs and other contraband, ceramic and metal knives, box cutters, precious metals and recording devices.
