Airport security panel calls for IT overhaul

Computerworld - A select group of IT industry executives based in Silicon Valley this week issued a series of recommendations for improving airport security that could amount to a massive IT overhaul of the nation's air transportation system.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Aviation Security and Technology, formed by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, issued a 35-page report Monday after 100 days of studying how to use existing information technologies to improve airline and airport security.
The task force's recommendations will be tested at 20 U.S. airports, which are expected to be named by the end of the summer. The recommendations that are found to be the most successful could be considered for deployment throughout the air transportation industry. That decision will be made by Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. Mineta is scheduled to meet with the task force tomorrow to discuss its final report.
The task force concluded that airport security can be improved through the installation of biometric identification systems to track airport employees and control access to aircraft, the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to monitor vehicles traveling in secure airport areas, cockpit monitoring and access technologies, and enhanced communications networks that would enable airport security personnel to more effectively communicate with one another and with law enforcement agencies.
"The report provides a blueprint or a road map by which the Transportation Security Administration, the Department of Transportation and the city of San Jose can bring about a more secure airport environment," said John Thompson, CEO of Symantec Corp., a Cupertino, Calif.-based antivirus software vendor, and chairman of the task force. The Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport is one of the busiest of its size and offers a perfect model to test such security technologies, said Thompson. "The problems that this airport has to endure are the same kind of problems that every other airport endures," he said, adding that the task force deliberately avoided recommending specific products or vendors.
Beatriz Infante, CEO of San Jose-based Aspect Communications Corp. and chairwoman of the task force's technology subcommittee, said the report focuses on three areas: validating the identities, locations and levels of access of airport workers; validating the integrity and security of the airport facility; and upgrading the airport's communications infrastructure to enable networking of security monitoring systems. Some of the recommendations may require the re-engineering of the physical facility, she said. For example, the San Jose airport recently closed 57 exits and entryways to enable more efficient monitoring of