It has been seven years since the US Congress passed the 9/11 Commission Act, which required the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to create a system capable of screening all air cargo shipments transported on passenger aircraft.
Only now are sophisticated predictive profiling systems – which analyse manifest data on shipments – able to classify the cargo by risk level, thus identifying those consignments where security risks justify further screening prior to release to the aircraft.
Rapiscan Systems, a specialist global supplier of security inspection systems, recognises that securing cargo is not merely a matter of inspecting and X-raying containers, but rather of controlling the entire movement and treatment of those con-tainers from ground to ‘plane.
“The less efficient the process, the more opportunity there is for breaches in security,” says Brad Buswell, who has recently joined the company as president, Rapiscan Aviation Products.
Buswell previously served as Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where he led technology development for the operating components of thedepartment’s security, including the TSA, Customs & Border Protection and US Secret Service.