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Next steps at airports

by Mark Rowe

The UK needs to take ten actions now to protect British citizens, writes Daniel Valentine, pictured.

Metrojet Flight 9268 was en-route from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport in Egypt to Polkova Airport in the city of St Petersburg in Russia when it was downed at 3:51am GMT on Saturday, October 31, killing all 224 people on board.

This incident, which from the very outset was correctly assessed by the UK authorities as being very likely a bombing (despite the keen efforts of the Egyptian Government to disguise the truth) should act as an reality check to the travelling public about the limitations of airport security worldwide, but especially in territories that suffer from endemic corruption and funding constraints.

Terrorism has been the dominant motive for airline bombings since the 1970s, when hijackings and bombings became the method of choice for militant organisations around the world, but on-flight bombs have a much longer history than this. The first generation of on-flight bombings were usually attempts at suicide or murder. The first on-flight bombing in the history of commercial aviation took place on October 10, 1933. A Boeing 247 airliner flying from Cleveland to Chicago exploded in mid-air over Chesterton, Indiana. A nitro-glycerine bomb was found to be the cause, but neither the perpetrators nor the motive were ever discovered.

Since the 1930s, airport security has made substantial progress, but the growth in the volume of air travel since the 1960s has imposed increasing constraints on the development of security measures. All governments seek to encourage foreign visitors and to grow the volume of air travellers, and keeping boarding times down is a key aspect of this volume management. Security therefore is traded off against convenience, and search times are greatly compressed.
All airport security effectively uses one of two approaches, trying to prevent devices being taken onto aircraft and trying to prevent people who have malicious intent having access to aircraft or airports. The media are very interested in high-tech solutions such as body scanners, but high tech scanning equipment of passengers and luggage is in reality just a part of the security solution.

Below are listed ten measures which will each improve airport security. The first four of these measures relate to the use of data. I believe that the UK’s top security priority is to capture more passenger data, to retain it, and to manage it better, so that passengers are given the appropriate security response, rather than the blanket approach which largely prevails at present.

The top ten measures recommended to improve airport security are:

1) The mandatory collection and retention of fingerprint and facial recognition biometrics for all in-bound and out-bound air passengers. The UK is far behind other nations in the use of biometric data. The EU has set minimum standards for passports which include the use of facial and fingerprint biometrics but the UK is not covered by these regulations. The UK introduced very basic biometrics in 2006 under pressure from the USA, since the USA required that member nations of the US visa waiver scheme introduced biometrics or be dropped from the scheme. The biometric chip was included in new passports only, and thus took ten years to roll out to the full UK population. The only data included in the chip was a single photographic image of the passport holder, and the biographical data included in the passport. The previous Labour government had planned to introduce ‘second generation’ ePassports in 2012, which would have included fingerprint data, in order to keep pace with the EU regulations.

However, the Coalition Government halted these plans and does not intend to extend the use of biometrics in UK passports beyond facial biometrics. Since March 2015 fingerprint and photo biometrics have been included in the new ‘biometric residence permit’ required for all visa applications ie. for all people entering the UK from outside the EEA who want to stay for more than six months. The world’s first full biometrics system, the ‘Unipass Airport Management System’, was piloted by the Israel Airports Authority in 2010. This system scans passports, and then takes fingerprint and facial imaging samples to create a biometric signature. It is time for the UK to extend biometrics to include fingerprint and palm print data.

2) Pre-screening of all passengers and the provision of a security classification to all passengers. Giving access by border security personnel of criminal history as well as blacklists furnished by intelligence units from the FBI, Interpol, Scotland Yard, MI5 and the CIA. Passengers’ details such as home phone numbers, birthdates, addresses, change of reservations and even meal preferences can be run through a database of terror suspects and ‘no fly lists’. Pre-screen 100 per cent of passengers on flights flying to, from, or within the UK against government watch lists will require Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Record (PNR) Data prior to departure, as happens in the USA. This would allow passengers to be classified by security risk before they reach the airport. This would also involve a substantial expansion of the ‘“no fly list’, such as happened in the USA following 9-11. Maintaining aviation security under current conditions requires that the UK Government should place much greater restrictions on who can fly. Judicial levels of proof are not required to ban people from aircraft; Air travel is not a right. Certain categories of criminals should be banned from air travel for life. Anybody convicted of terrorism offences, serious offences of violence, murder, drug trafficking, explosives and any other offences that would make them an unsuitable air passenger, wherever in the world the offence occurred, and whatever their nationality, would be unable to get on a plane in the UK, or a plane to the UK, or one transferring through the UK.

Allowing someone on a plane is an act of trust and people who have broken trust would forfeit air travel. This would also include exclusion of any citizens of states that sponsor terrorism, and the close scrutiny of any passengers who have travelled to these states. Just three states are currently classified in this way by the US Government: Iran, Syria & Sudan. North Korea, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Cuba and Afghanistan were formerly classified in this way but have been removed from the list. These people would all be excluded from public flights. People associated with designated ‘foreign terrorist organisations’ (FTOs) would also be excluded; the US State Department currently lists 59 such organisations.

3) Air travel history. Work should begin on a domestic protocol that would mandate record keeping of a person’s international air travel history. At present, if a terrorist has been to several countries known to house terrorist training camps, all he has to do is report his passport lost or stolen and obtain a new passport, wiping out any trace of suspicious travel activity. All new passports should contain information about previous travel, forcing the criminal or terrorist to adopt an entirely new identity if he wants to start with a blank canvas. This isn’t impossible, but it is more complicated than simply getting a new passport. Also, the reintroduction of passport stamps for all foreign travel, to stamp passports upon entry and departure in sequential order, replacing the haphazard system in place currently. This will allow a quick reading of a person’s travel history, which is valuable information for providing a security classification.

4) Introduce intrusive questioning. Technology and computer data is only part of the solution. Airport staff have an essential role as ‘eyes and ears’. Some nations stand head and shoulders above others in the matter of airport security, with Israel, Japan, Denmark and Germany being four of the best. In Israel, security comes first. Passengers at Tel-Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport are likely to be questioned four times before they board their flights. They will be questioned in their cars, at the entrance to the terminal, at check in, and then after baggage has been searched. Questioning at check-in is rigorous, and will include past travel, current travel plans, family members and religious beliefs. Based on the interview and other data all passengers are graded for threat level and then directed to another queue where all their luggage (hold luggage and carry-on luggage) is opened and searched. Passengers who have received higher threat grades (for instance people from or who have visited Muslim countries, solo female travellers, or passengers that did not respond well to initial questioning) are given extensive questioning. Passengers that arouse suspicion may be stripped naked and their clothes taken away for testing.

5) Bomb proofing of cargo holds. Reinforced steel flooring separating the passenger cabin area from the baggage hold area that would serve as a layer of protection in the case of an explosion. A new technology has been developed that stops flying shrapnel and absorb the shockwaves created by a blast that could otherwise rip through an aircraft’s fuselage. Developed at the University of Sheffield, the technology involves placing hold luggage into large bags within the hold. Each bag has four layers of material including one using Kevlar-like Aramid, The technology was tested on disused Boeing 747 and Airbus 321 planes at Cotswolds Airport, near Cirencester in July 2015 and successfully prevented damage to the airplane.

6) Implement the mandatory full searching of all luggage both inbound and outbound at all UK airports. The public have been told for too long that air travel is safe, when this is not true, and never has been. The rapid processing of hand-luggage and hold luggage means that there is no certainty that bombs will not be discovered. Mandatory hold baggage screening was only introduced worldwide in 2006. A thorough check of an item of fully loaded luggage would take in the region of two minutes, not the ten to 15 seconds that is customarily given to luggage. We need to re-think how luggage is processed. Bombs can be detected, but not in the conveyer belt system that airports are fitted with. Only a physical inspection of each bag, accompanied by an x-ray of individual items and trace portal machines (’puffer machines’) on each item of technology can detect bombs. Each item of luggage should also be checked by trained dogs; dogs still represent one of the most effective detection devices for explosives (and drugs). A skilled criminal could hide a bomb within a working electronic device and the x-ray image viewed at speed by a non-expert operator would not be able to distinguish the bomb from the device. Other benefits of the searching of all luggage would be the virtual elimination of drug trafficking. The introduction of the decompression chambers that are used in Israel to trigger any possible explosive devices would also be beneficial, which simulates pressure in the cargo compartment during flight to test for bombs set to go off at high altitudes.

7) Cabin bomb searches before take-off. Several staff have to access a plane while it is being turned around in an airport including cleaners, cargo personnel, catering staff and engineers. The danger of a device being placed within the plane by one of many categories of cabin crew is substantial. Although all individuals in contact with the flight are vetted and searched and all catering trolleys are sealed, there is still a risk of a device being placed on the plane while it is on the ground. I recommend that planes on the ground are given a dog search as a final precaution against the secretion of an explosive device.

8) Reverse subcontracting of ground crew. All categories of ground crew are already vetted, but the sub-contracting of these services has produced a casualisation of the services which means staff are hard to retain and personnel turnover quickly. No airline would sub-contract its pilots, and we recommend that sub-contracting of ground crew is now prohibited with ground crew instead being directly employed by the airport to increase the level of control that airports have over personnel. Contracting out was one of the buzzwords of the 1980s as part of the drive to cut costs and increase ‘shareholder value’, but it had a number of unfortunate side effects which were only evident over time. One of these side effects was the end of the ‘single team’ culture at the workplace, with different groups of employees working for different firms. In a secure environment, this workforce segregation is hazardous as it reduces self-monitoring amongst the work force. We recommend that airports become the sole employer of all airport services and recreate the ‘one team’ environment.

9) Insist that all foreign airports that connect directly to the UK must have British security staff onsite who supervise the security processes Many countries have poor airport safety records and a global security agency is badly needed that could at the very least inspect every international airport on a quarterly basis and publish its reports in order to shame national governments into action and warn passengers about the reality of risk that they face. Global standards for airport security are a distant hope, given that airports use local staff, and it is hard for airports to have better security than the local police can provide. In the meantime I suggest that the UK follows the example of Israel and supervises boarding of all flights bound for the UK.

10) Commit to never releasing anybody who tries to bring down a flight. The attractiveness of different countries for committing crimes differ not just on the ease of committing the crime, but also the penalties if caught in that country. Europe tends to be much softer than the USA, Israel and Japan, each of which retain the death penalty. The ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid was caught in 2001 in the USA and convicted in 2002 of the crime of the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced to three life sentences plus 110 years, with no possibility of parole. He is incarcerated in the famously harsh US prison system; he is in Supermax prison ADX Florence. Nezar Hindawi on the other hand, who committed a similar offence in London in 1986 was sentenced to 45 years in jail. Under the UK’s liberal parole system (which dates from the idealistic era of 1968) prison is never for life. Hindawi became eligible for parole in 2001, having served just 15 years (one third of his sentence). Two Home Secretaries have since blocked his release but he was granted parole in 2013, and looks set to be released in 2016. Picking the right country to perform an act of mass-murder can literally mean the difference between life and death. Our relatively liberal system of justice, which includes a lengthy appeals process, highly humane prison conditions and automatic parole, makes the UK an attractive country to commit terrorism.

These ten proposals combine process changes with the use of new technology. Technology alone is not the answer to our problems.
The 1986 case of Anne-Marie Murphy demonstrates clearly that technology is not a complete defence and astute personnel following well-designed processes play an essential role. Anne-Marie Murphy was an Irish-born woman who was five months pregnant at the time of what has come to be called the Hindawi Affair. She attempted to transport 1.5 kilograms of highly explosive Semtex onto a flight from London to Tel Aviv which her Jordanian fiancé Nezar al-Hindawi had placed in her luggage. The bomb and its detonator concealed in a pocket calculator had made it through two X-ray machines undetected. Murphy was caught simply because a border guard marked her conduct as suspicious, and thought that her hand-luggage was overweight for its size. She was subjected to a full search and the bomb was discovered.

The two greatest obstacles to increasing flight safety in the UK are not cost or technology related but firstly, the UK Government’s habit of asserting that its infrastructure and processes are world class, despite evidence to the contrary, which impedes more honest assessments of current security, and secondly, the high degree of sensitivity that British public agencies have to the ‘profiling’ (targeting) of high-risk people. ‘Profiling’ has become a very controversial issue in the UK and many other developed countries. Profiling is based on the principle that criminal behaviour is closely related to demographic and biographic data about people, and that investigative activity should be focussed on those people who have the characteristics that usually correlate to criminal behaviour. Because profiling might result in differential treatment of minority groups it tends to face very strong opposition by dedicated lobby groups. The reaction of certain pressure groups and journalists to the essential weapons of further biometric data, biographical data, criminal records, secret intelligence, profiling, intrusive questioning to provide more personalised security responses (including extended searches and flight bans) means that security reform moves at a snail’s-pace in the UK. The present approach smacks more of equality than effectiveness, but equality is the wrong principle when it comes to security, since passengers present great variety in their threat-levels. The UK’s hyper-sensitivity to the targeting of certain groups, and the gathering and use of further personal data is indeed the UK’s most serious impediment to more effective use of security resources in the quest to provide greater levels of protection for the travelling public.

In conclusion, airport technology, despite the level of interest shown in it by the media and the public, is a far from complete solution. Only when the latest technology is combined with biometrics data sharing, passenger profiling, intrusive questioning and permanent exclusion can we say we are doing our utmost to protect the population. And only when the government levels with the British people about the limitations of technology and makes a convincing case for rest of the security package will the public mood shift and opposition to new security methods subside. In the case of aviation security, honesty is certainly the best policy.

About the author

Daniel Valentine was an executive with MyTravel Airways and Thomas Cook, and a member of the emergency response team. Daniel lectures at Regent’s University London and consults worldwide on corporate security, risk management and crisis response. He can be contacted via: [email protected].

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