High-Tech Airport Security Devices Displayed
High-tech security equipment that could be used someday at airports nationwide to detect weapons, chemicals and potential terrorists was demonstrated Tuesday at Burbank Airport.
Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) attended the demonstration during the nation’s busiest travel week and the day after President Bush signed a bill to improve aviation security.
The technology is “as important as who will do the screening,” said Schiff, referring to Bush’s decision to replace private baggage screeners with federal employees. The bill calls for a pilot program to test these new technologies within two years at 20 airports, yet to be named, nationwide. The government then will spend $50 million a year from 2002 to 2006 to research and develop airport security devices.
Among the items showcased was a so-called “smart card” by Maximus of Rockville, Md., that uses a microchip to identify a person based on a fingerprint or facial features. Passengers would use the card to pass through three checkpoints before boarding a plane.
In the demonstration, Schiff swiped a card and placed his index finger on a special “reader” that compared the information to a database containing names on the FBI’s watch list. The card Schiff used was programmed to flag him as a potential terrorist, flashing red across a computer screen.
Ultra Information Systems of Carlsbad showed a blank card that can be imprinted with a person’s voice, fingerprint, handprint or scan of the eye’s retina to establish identity. Since a forged driver’s license can be purchased “for $50 on any street corner in L.A.,” the card is a far more reliable form of passenger identification, company President Patrick Johnson said.
“It takes something like 9/11 to show the need in the U.S. to have this type of security,” Johnson said.
Also on display were a passenger-screening portal by Quantum Magnetics of San Diego that pinpoints the location of a weapon on a person’s body and a hand-held electronic device by Cyrano Sciences Inc. of Pasadena that can be used to detect the presence of chemicals.
Some of this equipment is already in use. About 90% of the nation’s nuclear plants have “hand-geometry readers” to validate identities of workers by analyzing the structure of their hands, said Martin Huddart, general manager of Recognition Systems Inc. of Campbell, Calif. The device also is used to secure air operations areas at San Francisco International Airport and on passengers at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
Though none of the items had price tags, Schiff said, “When you consider the cost to the families and the economy [from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks], these systems are inexpensive.”
