IATA Survey Shows Passengers Will Use Biometrics if it Improves Airport Processes

Most airline travelers globally are willing to use biometrics to identify themselves if it means faster processing times through airport, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says based on the results of its 2021 Global Passenger Survey. The other main finding from the survey is that passengers want to spend less time in lines. “Passengers have spoken and want technology to work harder, so they spend less time being processed or standing in queues,” says Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for Operations, Safety and Security. “And they are willing to use biometric data if it delivers this result. Before traffic ramps-up, we have a window of opportunity to ensure a smooth return to travel post pandemic and deliver long-term efficiency improvements for passengers, airlines, airports and governments.” The survey says 73 percent of passengers are willing to share their biometric data to improve airport processes, up from 46 percent in 2019. It says 36 percent of passengers have experienced using their biometric data when traveling, with 86 percent of them satisfied. It also says that 88 percent will share immigration data prior to departure for expedited processing. A majority of respondents, 56 percent, are concerned about data breaches and 52 percent want to know who their data is being shared with and how it is being processed. When it comes to standing in lines, 55 percent say queuing at boarding is s top priority for improvement and 41 percent saying that waiting at security screening is a top priority to be improved. It says 38 percent of passengers identified queuing at border control and immigration is a top area to improve.

NATO Hosts Counter UAS Exercise

NATO this month hosted a live 10-day exercise that included more than 20 vendors that deployed about 70 systems improve capabilities to counter-drones, particularly interoperability. The systems included sensors, counter-drone equipment, and command and control systems and exercise drones. The Counter Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) Technical Interoperability Exercise 2021 was done by NATO’s Communications and Information (NCI)Agency at the Lt. Gen. Best Barracks in Vredepeel, the Netherlands. The systems used in the exercise included NCI’s ARTEMIS prototype, which uses machine learning to detect and classify drones. ARTEMIS “is an essential tool to help the agency understand the technology being used in the market and to identify areas where NATO would benefit from developing standards around counter-UAS systems,” says Maj. Gen. Goksel Sevindik, chief of staff at NCI.

Fortem Introduces Longer-Range Counter-Drone System

Fortem Technologies has introduced its SkyDome System 3.7, which detects and mitigates potential drone threats from longer ranges. The Utah-based company says the SkyDome 3.7 increases the range for target validation and adds more urban clutter suppression algorithms, enabling the defeat of low flying targets at longer ranges in urban and other highly cluttered environments. “The SkyDome System naturally evolves to safely defeat larger and multiple targets where other systems are limited by cost, size, power, range, safety, or single drone targeting,” says Timothy Bean, Fortem’s CEO. “This 3.7 update is an example of that natural evolution where updates are added to a fundamentally disruptive autonomous architecture to create real, viable, ongoing solutions to the evolving drone threat.” SkyDome consists of the small form factor TrueView radar, and DroneHunter, a small unmanned aircraft system that autonomously pursued, captures and tows away dangerous drones. Fortem says the updated system allows DroneHunter to intercept threats up to three time further than competed C-UAS solutions. Fortem also says that SkyDome 3.7 has a long-range camera option to extend the ability to validate a target visually.