Security technology: A new approach to airport security tests travellers’ recognition of incriminating stimuli
安全技术:机场安检新方法,测试旅客是否识别出与犯罪有关的刺激物
Jun 10th 2010
2010年6月10日
DESPITE all the effort put into it, and the annoyance caused to innocent travellers, airport security is a pretty haphazard affair. That could change if Ehud Givon has his way. Mr Givon is head of a small Israeli firm called WeCU, which thinks its technology can spot suspicious individuals that traditional methods miss.
WeCU’s approach relies on displaying stimuli, such as photographs of individuals who might be known to terrorists but not to ordinary people, or code words that intelligence has discovered are associated with particular operations, and observing what happens. The trick is that the observation is done automatically, and does not rely on the subjective impressions of tired and bored security guards.
When confronted with such stimuli, someone who is unfamiliar with them will merely be bemused and ignore them. Someone who knows what they are, however, may become concerned, and undergo an increase in body temperature, heart rate and breathing rate. WeCU’s apparatus is able to monitor the first two of these using an infra-red camera. This captures the heat pattern of blood vessels near the skin, betraying both changes in overall temperature and in heart rate. If necessary, the individual can be ushered away for further questioning.
The beauty of this system is that the bank of stimuli is varied and unpredictable. Even a skilled, well practised suspect who is aware of the system and who tries to prepare for the screening cannot know where the stimuli will come from and how they will appear.
The system has been demonstrated to the authorities in Germany, Israel and the United States. Mr Givon claims that tests with hundreds of subjects in both laboratory and real-life situations have shown that 95% of those flagged up are indeed “persons of interest”. America’s Department of Homeland Security has shown particular interest in WeCU. If further tests confirm its advantages, travellers in America may soon find themselves looking at unexpected and baffling slide-shows when they pass through the airport.