By Andy McCue, 20 June 2007 12:25
NEWS
Air travellers have backed biometric security checks after a four-month trial of the passenger screening technology at London's Heathrow airport.
Fingerprint and iris scans were used for screening more than 3,000 passengers who volunteered to take part in the trial on Cathay Pacific and Emirates flights to and from Dubai and Hong Kong.
The miSense trial was aimed at testing the feasibility of advanced passenger screening in the UK, which would allow the traveller's details to be checked against various intelligence and immigration databases and 'watch lists' before being allowed to board a flight.
The basic miSense security screening required passengers to scan their passport and right index finger at a self-service check-in kiosk before getting a boarding card. The manual check before security is then replaced by an automatic barrier activated by the passenger's fingerprint and a biometric reader verifies the passenger again at the boarding gate.
silicon.com's A to Z of Biometrics
Click on the links below to find out everything you'll need to know about biometric security.
A is for Accuracy
B is for Behavioural biometric
C is for Cash machine
D is for Database
E is for Ear
F is for Facial recognition
G is for Gummi bears
H is for Hand geometry
I is for Iris
J is for Juan Vucetich
K is for Keystroke dynamics
L is for Liveness testing
M is for Mobile phones
N is for Network security
O is for Oxford
P is for Palm
Q is for Queues
R is for Registration
S is for Signature verification
T is for Twins
U is for Universality
V is for Voice verification
W is for Walk
X is for X-ray
Y is for Young
Z is for Zurich Airport
A more advanced miSense screening collected 10 fingerprint, two iris and a facial image scan during a manual enrolment. This data was then uploaded onto an RFID smartcard, used in conjunction with a fingerprint reader at an automatic immigration barrier on arrival at Dubai, Heathrow or Hong Kong airports.
Overall, passenger feedback on the trial has been positive with 81 per cent rating the miSense service "good" or "excellent" and 87 per cent saying the enrolment process was easy. The main benefit cited by those who took part in the trial was faster journey times.
The average time to fully enrol a traveller was seven minutes and the self-service border clearance gate recorded an average time of 17 seconds to let passengers through. More than 3,000 traveller records were transferred to the Border & Immigration Agency background checking system during the trial and 96 per cent were processed in fewer than 30 seconds.
The report into the miSense trial said: "The advancement of technology has meant that biometric information can now be captured quickly, unobtrusively and, as observed during the trial, with a high degree of traveller acceptance."
The miSense technology was developed and delivered by a consortium of organisations including Accenture, BAA, the Border & Immigration Agency, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, IER, Raytheon, Sagem and Sita. Each organisation self-funded their elements of the trial including time, materials and equipment.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne added in the report: "New technology, particularly biometrics, and new approaches to managing risk and intelligence will play a fundamental part in making it easier for good travellers to travel - but bad for those we are concerned about."
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Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
"The miSense trial was aimed at testing the feasibility of advanced passenger screening in the UK, which would allow the traveller's details to be checked against various intelligence and immigration databases and 'watch lists' before being allowed to board a flight."
they forgot to mention "permanently added to" as well as "checked against"
2. Justin Wheatley
WHY UNMANNED?!
I don't understand why, if security is the true goal, leaving such a system to operate unmanned is seen as prudent. Surely the idea of adding these security features saves time as the traveller passes through security, but why not dedicate an officer to monitor it as well? If it is percieved that fooling a machine is now all you have to do, surely ways and means will be more readily developed?
3. Andrew Robb
If people are to be forced to check fingerprints, the public health issue of scanner hygene must be solved.
It would be a disaster if one passenger could infect others with anthrax spores via the 'security' scanner. (I suspect the various national security agencies have even better ways of using this opportunity for assassination.)
4. Andrew Tait
3,000 enrolled travelers is not even a drop in the bucket where air travel is concerned. What will the response times be like with 300,000 enrollees? What happens when the computers go down?
5. anonymous
Only quicker whilst few people use it!
Firstly, having watched some of this in action I suggest that their 17 seconds is a correct, but misleading, measure. I bet it it is NOT the entire time from stepping from "behind the yellow line" to the next person stepping forward. That would be the only useful measure and I suspect that is not significantly different than the human based version!
Secondly the controlling factor on any queue is the rate of arrival of new participants - and once (if ever) significant numbers of people are involved that will be fast enough to cause congestion.
Finally, even if this scheme could be enforced for all travellers, which at the earliest might be in 10-15 years time, any half ingenious "terrorist" will be a "sleeper" travelling with entirely legitimate documentation.
This is security theatre, not real improvement in security
The entire scheme is a misconceived waste of time and money.
This scheme is a misconceived waste of time and money.
6. Big brother
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NUTS! The speed of getting onto a plane is NOT the personal ID check but the carry-on BAG checks - X-ray and manual checks and time taken to take off your shoes, hand them over, getting them inspected or x-rayed, handed back and putting them back on.
And then... "all the details" get put onto an RFID card !!! - NO NO NO!!! ...so if my card is stolen then ALL MY BIO ID DETAILS are now in the hands of a miscreant?! No thank YOU!!! How would a person EVER be able to prove their real identity THEN???
Never in a guzillion years will I ever go along with this most recent ill-conceived and executed infantile government idea. Pure bolleaux! Why don't the Whitehall mandarins ever have enough sense to do something realistic and effective???