Malaysia Airlines - Orient Aviation

SPECIAL REPORT
Aviation Security
As the biometric eye scans wider …
It’s bad news
for the bad guys
Increasing use of biometrics, coupled
with moves towards Internet or
kiosk check-in, are strengthening
the hand of security personnel,
allowing them to not only better
identify travellers, but also gain valuable
clues about what they might be up to.
Moves are under way to integrate security
requirements into passenger processes
as self-service becomes more common,
allowing immigration staff to put biometric
and other information taken from a machinereadable
passport strip alongside check-in
data and ticket purchase details. Then they
can perform a kind of online profiling to
track down anything suspicious.
Matthew Finn, director, government and
security solutions at SITA, the industry IT
cooperative, explained the advantages.
“From a security perspective, those who
work in counter terrorism organisations
within a national police force are very worried
that some frequent travellers may appear to be
clean when they are not,” he said.
“Take the example of someone who
has a biometric passport, is a member of a
registered traveller programme and routinely
flies out of Hong Kong. There is no issue with
any of his data. No one is sensing any kind of
risk as part of his profile. He is not on a watch
list. But then, on one particular day, he has
been compromised, or has been acting as a
sleeper for a few years and is planning to get
up to mischief.”
Biographical data collected each time
the man has travelled can be used to build
up a picture and a risk assessment study
begins. “Part of this process also provides
the reservation data and it does tell a story,”
said Finn. “They discover he booked at a
travel agents where they previously had
problems in the past.
“That travel agent’s reference number
will be in his reservation data, as will his
credit card information. Maybe that card
has been used in another environment that
caused concern.”
The passenger might still appear clean,
but he either booked or checked in with
someone seen to have a higher level of risk.
“Linking all this data gives a real sense of
who is travelling and what people are doing
as part of the travel process,” said Finn.
There is the risk, however, that security
personnel will want to go too far. “There
are privacy dimensions that have to be
handled very carefully. Privacy advocates
are concerned about political, medical and
religious data,” said Finn.
SITA, which operates information
and security systems at airports, removes
sensitive fields that are causing concern to
bodies such as the European Parliament and
converts the information into a format a
government can use.
Increasing industry reliance on selfservice,
along with the International Air
Transport Association’s (IATA) Simplifying
Passenger Travel initiative, has put security
aspects of information technology processes
under the spotlight.
‘We need to understand how to
integrate security requirements
into the passenger process’
Matthew Finn
Director, Govt & Security Solutions
SITA
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Passport information can
provide the trigger for
security procedures
“Everyone is moving into self-service,
whether it be Internet or kiosk check-in,”
said Finn. “We need to understand how to
integrate security requirements into the
passenger process.”
Australia provides an example of how this
can be done through its “advanced passenger
processing system” which uses data from
the machine-readable zone of a passport
belonging to inbound travellers when they
check in elsewhere.
“That information is sent directly from
the check-in environment to the Australian
government, so they can verify your
biographic details and make sure you aren’t
on their watch list or haven’t been a previous
visa overstayer,” said Finn.
With some forecasts putting the majority
of check-ins outside the airport environment
within 10 years, there is an obvious need to
ensure appropriate security systems are in
place.
SITA is keen on the use of a thumbprint,
maybe originally stored in a passport, as a
traveller makes his way through the airport
processes. “Instead of data having to be
provided to multiple entities at multiple
times, when we bring security and selfservice
together, the trigger comes when you
put your fingerprint down,” said Finn.
“A ll t he biog r aph ical d at a , t he
documentary, f light and reservation
information can be extracted, cleaned up,
filtered and delivered.”
Again, harmonization is needed. “There
must be inter-operability and we can’t be
looking at fragmentation when it comes to
identity management. That’s the reason the
machine-readable passport with biometric
information stored in it is key, because that
will bring us standardization,” said Finn.
36 ORIENT AVIATION JULY/AUGUST 2007