“Predictable” screening methods making terrorist acts easier at airports: BAA chief

LONDON - Ian Hutcheson, the head of security at BAA, has said that the same airport baggage and screening procedures make it easy for terrorists to predict, adding that sophisticated techniques including “behavioural detection” should be implemented in airports across Britain.

According to the Telegraph, his remarks come as Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, is pressing for greater flexibility in airport security, ending the almost identical methods adopted around the world.

“There has to be an element of not being sure what security you are being subjected to. Most attacks on aviation are well reconnaissanced and well planned. If you have a consistent security system around the globe it is quite easy to reconnoitre that and predict it,” the paper quoted Hutcheson, as saying.

He also backed more sophisticated techniques including “behavioural detection,” which has already been tested by BAA at its six airports: Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stansted.

To analyse the behaviour of passengers at the airports while waiting for a flight, a number of BAA staff have been reportedly trained.

Hutcheson wants airports to be given greater freedom to draw up their own security arrangements, the paper said.

Hammond has been critical of the current arrangements in which the EU and DfT dictate exactly how security should be implemented, and urged the EU to allow airports to use body scanners as a prime method of security, rather than requiring all passengers to go through metal detectors. (ANI)