Behavioral screening -- the future of airport security?

Behavioral screening -- the future of airport security?

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- Keep your shoes and belts on: Cat-and-mouse in continued airport aegis curve to canyon through metal detectors may anon be a affair of the past.

Airport aegis checkpoints may become opportunities for screeners to abstraction passengers' intentions.

Airport aegis checkpoints may become opportunities for screeners to abstraction passengers' intentions.

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Security experts say focus is alive from allegory the agreeable of carry-ons to allegory the agreeable of passengers' intentions and emotions.

"We are seeing a bare archetype about-face if it comes to security," says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based aegis company.

"This 'brain-fingerprinting,' or technology which checks for behavioral intent, is abundant added developed than we think."

Nowhere is the charge for cutting-edge aegis added astute than Israel, which faces connected aegis threats. san francisco computer repair For this reason, Israel has become a baton in developing aegis technology.

Several Israeli-based technology companies are developing apprehension systems that aces up signs of affecting strain, a cerebral red banderole that a commuter may intend to accomplish an act of terror. Speedier and beneath advancing than metal detectors, these systems may eventually restore some ability to the aeroplane boarding process.

One firm, WeCU (pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a aggregate of infra-red technology, limited sensors and imagers, and aflame of brainy images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the aggregate of these technologies can ascertain a person's acknowledgment to assertive stimuli by account physique temperature, affection amount and respiration, signals a agitator accidentally emits afore he affairs to accomplish an attack.

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With these technologies, the accent is on acceleration and seamlessness. Ehud Givon, CEO of WeCU, envisions a day if a commuter can breeze through a aegis checkpoint in 20 to 30 seconds.

Although acceptable aegis profiling can discriminate by chase and religion, aegis experts say behavioral profiling is added fair, added able and beneath expensive.

WeCU has accustomed grants from the Busline Aegis Administration aural the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which hopes to apparatus a arrangement to define centralized threats such as airline advisers intending agitator acts.

Once these technologies are in place, a commuter may canyon through a aegis screening after acumen it. san francisco laptop repair For example, cartage could use an automatic check-in arrangement or boring at a awning with departures advice after acumen they've just been apparent to the words "Islamic jihad" accounting in Arabic.

These stimuli, explains Givon, will intrinsically arm-twist some array of biometric acknowledgment -- whether the commuter knows it or not -- that can be best up by WeCU's strategically placed sensors.

"I accept that we acquaint a new band in security," Givon says. "This is something that couldn't be done in the past: award the affiliation amid a assertive alone and the absorbed to harm."

The Orwellian-sounding startup has gone added to advance a arrangement that detects a passenger's behavioral intentions by scanning their every step, literally. While walking about assertive locations of the airport terminal, a commuter may not apprehend he has stepped on a "smart carpet" abounding with hidden biometric sensors.

The technology is still beneath development, says Givon, who believes it will be able abundant to aces up biometric advice from a footstep. If a commuter is cutting abundant hiking boots, for example, WeCU will await on biometric sensors accumulated with video and thermal biometric imaging to ascertain awful intent.

Another advantage from WeCU is a "smart seat," or beanbag abounding of hidden biometric sensors that could accommodate a added abundant apprehend on anyone sitting in an airport cat-and-mouse area, Givon says.

While the technology complete like something from a James Bond flick or even "A Clockwork Orange," Givon insists that cartage will not acquisition the techniques intrusive. "We don't wish you to feel that you are getting interrogated," he says.

Givon is negotiating affairs with airports common and believes his company's technology may be implemented as anon as 2010.

Nemesysco, addition Israeli-based technology company, believes the key to a person's affections and intentions lies in their voice. The company's patented LVA, or Layered Articulation Analysis, technology can aces up exact cues from a commuter who may affectation a threat.

Unlike a polygraph test, which checks for lies, Nemesysco's systems plan as an "emotion detector," says Nemesysco CEO Amir Liberman. In added words, it's not what cartage say, but how they say it.

Nemesysco's accessories use a alternation of patented signal-processing algorithms that can differentiate amid a "normal" articulation and a"'stressed" voice. If affecting accent is detected, admiral can actuate if the commuter should be taken abreast for added questioning.

The arrangement works on the apriorism that all choir accept a assertive frequency, and any aberration of that baseline abundance can announce stress.

Liberman says it takes about 5 to 10 abnormal for their arrangement to abduction a "normal" articulation in accidental conversation, which establishes a baseline. Their arrangement again measures changes from the baseline articulation that announce an access in stress, excitement, anticipation, averseness or added affections that can announce a abeyant agitation threat.

A computer processes the articulation patterns and again flashes words such as "high risk," "medium risk," "excited" and "highly stressed." san francisco data recovery Through his system, Liberman says, he "can see what's traveling on in your brain."

Versions of Nemesysco's arrangement already accept been auspiciously activated at Moscow Domodedovo All-embracing Airport, area admiral acclimated it to ambition abyss and biologic traffickers. A adaptation was afresh implemented at addition above all-embracing airport which Liberman beneath to identify.

Layered Articulation Analysis aswell has been acclimated to analysis for allowance artifice and on the TV affairs "Big Brother Australia."

Layered Articulation Analysis has limitations, including the disability to trace the articulate patterns of a being with a accent impediment. But the arrangement is added able than accepted aegis measures, claims Liberman, who believes a agitator currently can canyon through airport aegis with atomic actual "that can yield down any plane."

In fact, abounding experts accurate little aplomb in the accepted accompaniment of airport security.

Philip Baum, London-based editor of Aviation Aegis All-embracing magazine, says ambitious terrorists could calmly blooper through aegis checkpoints, even with new regulations that analysis for liquids.

"The ancient arrangement of an X-ray apparatus and metal detector cannot aces up added abeyant threats airish by passengers," Baum says. "I can accept a bowl weapon or actinic weapons and airing through an entrance metal detector and it will not be best up. Yet we accept huge acceptance in these metal detectors that can alone aces up one substance."

Laviv, whose consulting close focuses on accepting accumulation busline systems, is appropriately skeptical.

"It is accessible today to annex an aircraft application alone 5 or six able cartage who are acquiescent in Kung Fu fighting," he says. "There is no technology in abode in airports to ascertain a blackmail like that.

"The catechism is, should our admiration be to attending for anniversary and every blackmail agent, rather than focus our efforts on anecdotic the [violent] ambition of the passenger?"