Dignity to Return to Commercial Flights

What’s the Latest Development?

The International Air Transport Association (I.A.T.A.) is planning to use biometric sensors, non-invasive scanners and a little common sense (finally!) to return dignity to future airport checkpoints: “Three security lanes will have technology to check passengers according to risk. Each traveler will undergo an iris scan to determine their identity. A computer will then crosscheck each persons′ travel history, and determine their relative risk based on a complex intelligence algorithm.” The system will consider how potential a threat each passenger is.  

What’s the Big Idea?

“Today’s checkpoint was designed four decades ago to stop hijackers carrying metal weapons,” said Giovanni Bisignani, I.A.T.A.’s Director General and C.E.O. “Since then, we have grafted on more complex procedures to meet emerging threats. We are more secure, but it is time to rethink everything. We need a process that responds to today’s threat. It must amalgamate intelligence based on passenger information and new technology. That means moving from a system that looks for bad objects, to one that can find bad people.”