Anticipating the next terrorist threat

The following article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6 January 2010

Amsterdammers, famous lovers of the unconventional, will soon have their most intimate body parts on display, down to the last piercing, when they fly.

Airline passengers leaving from Schiphol Airport to anywhere in the US will be the first in the world to be routinely scrutinised by security staff sitting behind full-body scanners.

The Netherlands will be the first, but other European countries will follow suit. The introduction of the scanners is likely to be a key part of US President Barack Obama's recommendations following the failed Christmas Day plot by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Australians should expect to shed their inhibitions and submit to full body scans, because the use of the radio wave devices will certainly become the international standard following the attempt. Yet history has shown that aviation security has consistently lagged behind terrorists' techniques. Worse still, it requires an attack or attempted attack on the US before security experts take notice.

At a recent Asia-Pacific Airport and Aviation Security conference in Melbourne, countless examples of terrorist groups learning successful techniques from each other were cited. In 1995, a plot to simultaneously detonate liquid explosive bombs on up to a dozen trans-Pacific flights was foiled after a dummy run went awry and a nitroglycerine bomb exploded, killing one, on a Philippine Airlines flight. Yet it took a plot by British Islamic fundamentalists a decade later targeting US cities before restrictions on liquids and gels were introduced.

Similarly, Algerian hijackers first thought of using a plane as a missile to hit Paris as far back as 1994, but only after the attacks of September 11, 2001, were cockpit doors reinforced. Baggage reconciliation was introduced only after Lockerbie and metal detectors became mandatory only after several hijacked Cuban aircraft killed Americans in the 1960s.

But every terrorist attack against a US-bound airliner has been trialled elsewhere. A month before Abdulmutallab loaded his underwear with plastic explosive, a Somali national was arrested trying to board a Dubai-bound Daallo Airlines flight in Mogadishu with the same choice of daks.

Full body scanners are more effective than traditional X-ray arches and produce a silhouette of the body, identifying any concealed items. Yet they also reveal breasts, genitalia and other intimate details many would rather remain hidden, leading to howls of protest by privacy groups.

Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney airports have all trialled the scanners, but only for volunteers. As an alternative to a pat-down, many find the walk-through less intrusive, the Department of Transport's Office for Transport Security said during the trial.

Dutch and British airports will be able to deploy the scanners quickly because they already own them, but had been blocked by European Union privacy laws from using them. EU ministers will meet next week to discuss what measures (such as same-sex scrutineers, deletion of images and de-identification of passengers) are required to get the ban lifted.

Canada and the US will also publish guidelines and together a new set of de facto international guidelines will be created. Australia will grapple with the privacy issues too, but faced with a likely ban on passengers flying to the US from airports without the new technology, resistance will be futile.

There is a whole arsenal of new kit out there, from spectrum analysers to pick up liquid explosives in drinks bottles to face-recognition technology linking closed-circuit television to watch lists.

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