TEL AVIV–Similar to what passengers traveling into and through airports in the U.S. see routinely in the post-9/11 world, Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport boasts multiple layers of security, some of them obvious and others less so, all designed to identify potential security threats at each successive layer while easing the travel experience for passengers that don’t pose a threat.
The outer layer of security consists of daily intelligence briefings for the successive shifts of security workers, Nahum Liss, the head of the Planning Control and Projects Department for the Security Division of the Israel Airports Authority, tells reporters during a recent press trip to the country. The security division has over 2,300 employees, divided between Passenger Security, and Armed and Physical Security Branches, most of which are university students who have completed their compulsory military service for the Israel Defense Forces.
The bulk of the employees are in the Passenger Security branch, which Liss likens to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Unlike TSA, most of the approximately 1,600 employees are working part-time while they attend classes at a university.
While the intelligence layer might be considered one of the soft layers of security, a hard layer is obvious when visitors pass through manned checkpoints upon entering the airport property on either of two roads. Here armed guards briefly stop each vehicle and quickly screen all incomers and usually engage in a short conversation with one or more of the occupants. At this point the guards, who are trained in behavior detection techniques, begin profiling everyone coming into the airport, Liss says.
Most of the guards and passenger screeners working at Ben Gurion are trained in varying degrees to profile behavior, Liss says. He wouldn’t describe all the factors that go into the profiling, a word that is taboo in the U.S. when it comes to observing passengers, and hedged somewhat when discussing how much racial characteristics come into play. He did say that that behavior profiling takes “skill.”
In addition to the armed guards, the entrance checkpoints are equipped with license plate reading (LPR) technology that can provide an alarm, indicating the need for a more intensive personnel and vehicle search, which can take over an hour, Liss says. Just before the checkpoint are pop-up bollards and about 250 meters further down the road are additional barriers that are integrated with the LPRs and deploy if an alarm sounds, he adds.
Liss says that Ben Gurion is testing Under Vehicle Inspection Technology that will be deployed at the entrance checkpoints as well. However, testing of the imaging systems so far has resulted in too many false alarms, which means that security officials at first will rely on the technology for a visual, rather than automated, inspection, he says.
Ben Gurion also relies somewhat on canines to sniff for explosives and weapons but Liss says that the Security Division is less reliant on dogs than in the U.S. because they don’t work long enough and it’s difficult to be sure if they are working or not.
Once passengers arrive at the terminal, which vehicles can’t get more than a few tens of meters next to because of additional barricades and bollards that create a blast mitigation zone, there are under cover armed guards and additional security screeners. The screeners here profile the behaviors of passengers arriving at the terminal and also look for unattended luggage and vehicles that may be loitering, Liss said.
Outside the terminal entrance cameras that are networked to a single command center and are aided by video analytics technology also keep an eye out for suspicious signs. Liss says the video analytics is only seeing limited use for now. The technology is good at picking up on people and vehicles that are loitering in one spot. However, he says, the technology creates too many false alarms on unattended luggage, particularly in a crowd of people, so it is not being used for this purpose now.
Terminal 3, which is relatively new and is used for all international flights at Ben Gurion, has a strengthened glass facade. Just inside the facade are cables and steel beams that crisscross the length and height of the glass to prevent it from breaking into tiny pieces and showering people with lethal fragments should a bomb detonate outside the terminal, he says.
Tracking and Additional Profiling
Once inside the terminal, passengers begin waiting in one of a dozen or so lines to have their luggage checked for explosives. At the end of the line is a security screener who again engages in a brief conversation with passengers and “characterizes” each person and assigns them to a certain security threat level. In practical terms that threat level is contained in a bar coded sticker that is affixed to the checked luggage. Liss says the screeners doing the characterization are not doing a full profiling. The characterization process is two-years old and in the past year the number of passengers defined as suspicious has been reduced based on ongoing testing, he says.
From the point of “characterization” until a passenger gets onto his plane, that individual is being tracked by security. Ben Gurion plans to do a pilot test at the “characterization” point whereby a screener equipped with a lap top computer will not only bar code a person’s luggage but will also capture each person’s fingerprint and digital photo to both identify them and for entry into a database in order to better track an individual throughout their stay at the airport, Liss says.
He says that if every passenger at the characterization process was labeled a high security threat, then passenger throughput would suffer.
Next the checked luggage goes through Explosives Detection Systems that are in the lobby. The machines in the Terminal 3, of which there were at least eight, all appeared to be supplied by General Electric [GE] although Liss says the airport also has EDS from L-3 Communications. [LLL]. If any bags are selected for secondary screening, they are taken to a visible area where they may be physically inspected or subject to a swab analysis using an explosives trace detector.
Passengers then collect their bags and proceed to the appropriate airline check-in where the checked luggage is collected for deposit into the Hold Baggage System. Liss says that Ben Gurion plans to integrate its EDS systems with the Hold Baggage System soon. As part of this in-line integration, the airport will also use GE’s Yxlon X-Ray Diffraction systems to help resolve any alarms without having to remove luggage from the conveyor belts for manual inspection, he says.
Foreign passengers on international flights then proceed through passport control before heading to the security checkpoint. By this point, the security measures have been designed to weed out the most likely threats, Liss says. Israeli citizens departing on international flights head over to a kiosk where they submit to a palm scan for identification.
The Checkpoint
At the checkpoint, passengers get to leave their shoes on and can leave any liquids they have in their carry-on bags. However, laptop computers must be removed from any carrying cases.
Like most airports, passengers pass through a metal detector while their carry-on bags are subject to an X-Ray inspection. If the metal detector doesn’t alarm, then a passenger typically collects his bag and moves into the secure side of the terminal. If the lower part of the metal detector does alarm, then the individual is asked to step on to a shoe screening device called MagShoe, which is supplied by IDO Security [IDOI]. Liss says the MagShoe “works great.” About 95 percent of alarms from metal detectors are for the shoes, he says. At the checkpoint some passengers may also be subject to an explosives trace detection analysis.
Prior to boarding a flight, passengers have their boarding pass checked and must divest themselves of any liquids (at least any large bottles like 12 ounces of water). A flight may only depart once the number of passengers that has boarded the plane is identical to the number of people who have checked in for a flight and passed through security, Liss says.
Onboard aircraft security, such as air marshals, is not the job of the Security Division, Liss says.
In addition to the various layers of security that passengers are subject too, Ben Gurion employs a host of other security measures, such as airport employee screening and perimeter intrusion detection, Liss says.
Perimeter protection is provided by a combination of physical and electronic fencing, meaning imaging systems that are integrated to pan to an area where an alarm goes off. Anti-tailgating technology, ground radar that is synchronized to long-range day-night cameras and armed security patrols all contribute to perimeter security. The airport is considering using a buried cable to do seismic sensing as well, Liss says.
In addition to all of the existing perimeter security systems, Ben Gurion recently finished a pilot test of a monorail equipped with cameras and other sensors that moved along a portion of the fence line at speeds up to 60 kilometers per hour, Liss says. The airport also is testing unmanned security vehicles equipped with sensors for perimeter protection, he says.
Anyone who needs access to the airside of the airport goes through background checks, which includes all suppliers and truck drivers, Liss says.
The airport also makes use of a computerized simulation that evaluates risks and threats and “lets us know where attack zones can be and whether they need to be covered,” Liss says. “If we want to try a new long-range camera, we model it into the simulation.”