Securing the movement of people and goods:
Airport border control
Ella Cockbain
eleanor.cockbain.09@ucl.ac.uk
Ireneos Drakos ireneos.drakos.09@ucl.ac.uk
James French james.french.09@ucl.ac.uk
Airport security: Issues and challenges
• Distinguish legitimate and illegitimate movements of goods and people
• Prevent illegitimate movements
• Ensure the secure, safe and efficient movement of legitimate goods
and people
• Research from many different disciplines can assist in addressing
these challenges...
Airport security: Issues and challenges
Research interest: Geographical
properties of soil
• Determining the provenance of materials
•
Reconstruct movements in a spatial and temporal sense
Soil forensics and airport security: Case
study
• Morgan et al (2006) outline the use of this approach in three cases of
wildlife crime
• Illegal importation of Eleonara’s falcon (Falco Eleonorae) into the
United Kingdom...
Soil forensics and airport security: Case
study
1.
Man detained for being in possession of two young falcons. Climbing
rope and other kit recovered from suspect’s house
Soil forensics and airport security: Case
study
2. Soil from rope compared with four samples from Mallorca, where the
birds breed in the wild
Soil forensics and airport security: Case
study
3. Advanced, independent scientific techniques were able to exclude
three of the four sample sites
Concluded that soil from the rope could not be excluded from having
derived from the fourth site
Soil forensics and airport security: Case
study
4. Evidence contributed towards a guilty verdict and the first custodial
sentence imposed for such a crime committed in Britain
Potential developments
• Development of soil databases associated with the natural wild
habitats of endangered/threatened species
• The automation of analytical techniques e.g. The scanning of quartz
grain surface textures
Research interest: Medical physics
• Medical Imaging using
X-Ray sources
• 3D scans
Medical physics and airport border control:
Problems
• Reduce the risk
BUT...
• Without increasing the “worry factor”
or jeopardising people’s human rights
• FACT: 1-2 seconds per bag when
Heathrow is busy for initial screening
Medical physics and airport border control:
Solutions
1.
Increase check points where scanners will be employed to scan
baggage of each passenger – reducing traffic (limiting queue)
•
Standard fixed Scanners
•
Portable black scanning
boxes
Medical physics and airport border control:
Solutions
2.
Employ Vehicle Inspection Scanners
Medical physics and airport border control:
Solutions
3.
Employ radiologists or train individuals?
VS
Research interest: Human trafficking for the
sex trade
•
Indicators of trafficking
•
Crime scripting and situational
crime prevention
•
Trafficking from Eastern Europe
•
Child trafficking
•
Understanding the demand
for trafficked women
Trafficking and airport border control: Problems
• At least 300 000 women are trafficked every year within Europe
• Estimated 10-30% victims are under 18
• Many arrive via airports, often with legitimate documentation
• Problem exacerbated by 2012 Olympics...
• Easier to conceal?
• Increased demand?
Trafficking and airport border control: Improving
prevention and detection
• Improving interview and screening procedures (indicators of
trafficking, crime mapping, profiling, behaviour patterns)
• Developing crime scripts and applying situational crime prevention to
trafficking at borders