Security's next wave

By Marie Shields

Ron Louwerse tells Marie Shields about the futuristic technology that is helping Amsterdam's Schiphol airport fight terrorism.

In these times of heightened terror threats, one of the toughest jobs has got to be that of an airport's director of security. How to thwart a potential attack while ensuring customers are not unduly inconvenienced?

Once answer is to invest in up-to-the-minute technology, something that is in evidence at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, where advanced body scanning machinery called the 'Security Scan' was introduced in 2007. The machines produce an image of the body contours using millimetre wave reflection technology, which alerts security staff to the presence of unauthorized items on the body.

Schiphol's Director of Security Ron Louwerse explains the advantages of this technology: "The main benefit is that the machine scans all objects that people have on their body. A metal detector only scans metal, and then we have to do a random search to look for explosives. This machine looks for metal, explosives and non-ferrous items. The big advantage is that, with the scan, you deal with all possible threats people can carry with them."

He points out that it is also very fast. "The actual screening only takes three seconds. In the current system, the agent needs about nine to ten seconds to look at an image if there's something he has to go investigate further. This is a different agent from the one standing next to the machine. They communicate through a wireless system, and when something is not okay with the ankle or whatever, he only has to say, 'It's not okay with the ankle.' The actual body frisking can be minimised to a specific location, in this case the ankle, which makes it much more passenger-friendly because it doesn't involve a search of the whole body."

Some passengers were understandably a little apprehensive about the machines when they were first introduced: Louwerse says they were viewed like "some new science fiction thing, like something from Star Trek." Now, however, they have become used to it and airport staff have found the system to be very passenger-friendly, with a normal throughput of about four passengers per minute, a speed Louwerse calls "acceptable".

Airline passengers have been taking the machines in their stride, but that hasn't stopped privacy-related questions being asked about them in the European Parliament. "They were worried about the image being seen by other agents," Louwerse explains. "That's why, with the company who manufactures the machine, we have tested new software in which there is no image for an agent to see. It's a fully automated detection device: on a kind of outline next to the machine it bleeps up on the ankle or on the knee or on the shoulder or whatever. There's no communication with the two agents and there's no agent who looks at it."

Human error

When airport security breaches do happen, they are often blamed on human error, which may be why Schiphol's motto, as quoted by Louwerse, is "technology where possible and people where necessary". "That's the way we try to fulfill all security obligations," he says. He cites 100 percent control of staff when they enter security-restricted areas, and the use of a central location to minimise the number of agents required to look at X-rays, as being vital to maintaining high levels of security.

One of the big issues facing airport staff is how to keep passengers happy during increasingly lengthy security procedures. What are the challenges in maintaining security but also keeping a good customer experience? Louwerse says that the most important element is passenger-friendliness: "When we train our people, we always emphasise the need for being friendly and polite and showing respect," he emphasizes.

No matter how advanced the technology gets, there will always be a human factor in making sure the customer experience is a good one. "It can be a difficult task, because you have to screen a lot of passengers on a daily basis. Not all passengers act friendly towards you, and it can be difficult sometimes to maintain your composure. The main challenge is to keep the whole process passenger friendly, but still it has to be a security process."

Although our awareness of terror threats remains relatively high, Louwerse admits that there is always a danger that complacency can creep in. In order to combat this, Schiphol uses 'mystery' passengers and other programmes to ensure staff remain alert to possible breaches. "I think it's a normal human reaction. When the threat is not immediate, it could slip in. If we see this happening, we act immediately," he says. "We're on a good level."

In addition to preventing threats introduced by passengers, there are other crucial areas where security needs to be maintained, including the airport's perimeter. Schiphol has about 55 km of fencing, which Louwerse says is a large area to maintain. The airport uses modern radar and camera technology to prevent intrusion, and also works closely with the local police authority, which carries out surveillance around the whole area.

Acting out

Airport security is often accused of being reactive in nature, and this does appear to be true. After 9/11, more control was introduced around cockpit doors and sharp objects were banned from cabins. Following the 'shoe bomber' incident, many airports started requiring certain types of shoes to be scanned. A threat from liquid explosives materializes and suddenly rules relating to liquids are tightened up.

It's easy to point fingers and say these measures have come too late, but how can we protect against things we haven't even thought of yet? "You have to think the unthinkable," Louwerse says. "That's a paradox I can't solve. It's very difficult. You should be alert; you should look not only for compliance with regulations, but as a security agent or a security department, you should look for the actual threat. That's just being aware at the spot, at the time, at the moment of what's happening. Then we'll be okay.

"You could say a lot of this is theatre. Which in a way is true, because 99.9999 percent of our passengers are not the ones we are looking for. But you still have to check and control them. It looks like theatre, but in the end, there's a reason you're doing it. It's not really theatre at all."

Louwerse agrees that part of the function of security checks is to make passengers feel as though something is being done. He says this works both ways: it makes some passengers feel secure, but then others complain because they feel they're being treated like criminals. He notes the difficulty of finding a balance between those two feelings.

Louwerse pins his hopes on new developments in technology to ease the stress that can often exist during current airport security procedures, moving toward a time when passengers won't even notice they're being screened. "We're not there yet," he says. But with its forward-looking approach, there's no reason why Schiphol shouldn't continue to lead the field of airport security into the future.

Ron Louwerse is Director of Security for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

On Christmas Day 2009 an al-Qaida affiliated Nigerian man attempted to bring down a passenger plane over Detroit as it completed it's flight from Schiphol. We spoke with Ron Louwerse a few weeks before the shocking event and were understandably impressed with the extensive measures taken to protect travelers passing through the airport. However, as demonstrated by the lapse that allowed a man on a terror watch list to pass through security with explosives strapped to his body, even the most advanced protective setups have their vulnerabilities. We'll be returning to this issue in future editions to ask if any measures can ever make us truly safe, or whether we simply have to accept a certain degree of risk whenever we travel.