In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, terrorist activity is widely expected to intensify and surface in many new areas of the world.
As 9/11 demonstrated, civil aviation is an obvious soft target, and with terrorists getting increasingly sophisticated and technology intensive, methods of security control will necessarily need to be correspondingly upgraded as rapidly as possible.
In particular, we need to recognise that a paradigm shift in the entire security scenario has been caused by the emergence of the suicidal/jehadi terrorist. Many of the classical deterrent methods of policing are, therefore, ineffective against this new threat of the jehadi.
At the same time, airline traffic continues to grow. In Asia, future growth is projected at twice the current levels in the Western world. The ability to handle large passenger and cargo volumes, rapidly yet effectively, needs to be achieved without being personally intrusive.
This aspect will, in fact, be a key factor in the future commercial success of an airport, and ultimately, of the destinations that it services. The business world is already reacting negatively to the stringent new screening procedures that are being progressively introduced at US airports post-9/11.
Broadly speaking, aviation security hinges around three key elements:
- Passengers (prevention of hijackers/suicide bombers from boarding aircrafts).
- Luggage/cargo (prevention of dangerous packages being loaded).
- Controlled access to airport buildings and their immediate environs, which would prevent attacks on heavily populated terminals and low-flying aircrafts with shoulder-borne missiles, as happened in Mombasa recently.
This in turn, boils down to quick, and foolproof identification of every person or package entering terminals and aircrafts.
The isolation and monitoring of the approach funnels remain, but that can only be realistically addressed through sophisticated intelligence work.
Aviation authorities all over the world are engaged in evolving new technologies to be built into the screening equipment, as well as in updating the security processes and methods presently in use. For the Indian aviation security authorities two imperatives are clear:
- The real-time integration of passenger identification at all airports with police databases within the country. This can only happen through adoption of a common technology and database within the country.
- Adoption of compatible technology and inking of appropriate agreements to enable continuous and real-time access to databases in use at major airports across the world.
The key to international security would lie in the creation of a common database that includes a biometric parameter. US airports are introducing mandatory fingerprinting and photography of all incoming passengers with effect from next month.
A good beginning has already been made in this direction with the Delhi transport authorities already using an index finger print scan that is encoded on the driving licenses that it currently issues.
What would be efficient as well as cost-effective would be to standardise this progressively with all licensing authorities across the country, and also commonise it with the issue of travel documents such as passports.
At the same time, our government should also integrate this biometric parameter when issuing visas. A logical extension of this would be to integrate this database with the voter identification card and the permanent account number (PAN).
In parallel with this, will be the need to introduce automated security gates at all our major airports that are activated by recognition technology, and can store information of passengers passing through them for up to a fortnight.
The major investment that is needed will be to convert access to all the operational areas of our airports to automated gate control.
It must be recognised that large-scale use of manpower to man access gates is subject to significant error rates, and some porosity as well.
Manpower training, motivation, and efficiency are all variables that increase error rates.
There is also a need to upgrade the existing equipment to check baggage and cargo and also increase equipment capacity and speed, to eliminate delays.
Of all the improvements required, this is possibly the easiest to carry out, with the immediate hindrance being the availability of funds.
All of the foregoing issues lead to one conclusion -- aviation security has now become a specialised, technology-intensive subject that can only be manned by a small, well-educated and highly trained force with close working links with their counterparts all over the world.
Its equipment, training, and work methods have to be clearly distinct from that of conventional policing, and as such its organisational structure, induction qualifications, and career patterns will necessarily have to be different.
It may well be worthwhile considering completely revamping the present Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and making it proactive instead of its current advisory role.
The present step to bring in the CISF for securing airports is a sub-optimal one. The CISF functions primarily to prevent theft, and to control industrial labour dissent; they are not trained or equipped to control terrorist strikes, bombs and hijackings!
To conclude, we need to fundamentally rethink our entire aviation security strategy, bring in the new equipment and terminal modifications, and to do this quickly through a special aviation security force that is raised, trained and functions independently with direct links to the national security agencies.
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