A Time of Magic

It’s certainly handy to have one of those hi-tech x-ray machines in the airports but you still need to have trained staff to know how to pick out items that look a little peculiar on the screen. As the guy looking at the screen usually just sits there, it’s equally important that he’s supported by staff trained to pick out the “funnies” that he’s noticed.

Sounds easy, but, of course, it isn’t.

For a start, the guy looking at the screen should also search the case. After all, he knows roughly what he’s looking for. That used to happen but never seems to these days and it means that a lot is missed.

Take for instance my recent trip. I always carry a set of luggage scales which are basically a big spring and a scale that lets you read off the weight. They’re pretty rare these days and therefore unusual on the scanner. What I do if I remember is to take the scales out of the carryon bag and put them on the tray with the magazines or whatever I’ve bought.

So what happened recently? Well, as expected, the scales put a sense of panic in the guy looking at them on the scanner which was passed on to his colleague. Snag was that I’d forgotten my little clear plastic bag so just set my 30ml contact lens bottle on the top of the magazine bag in clear view. That had the effect that the security guy completely forgot about what he was supposed to be checking and concentrated on a tiny bottle of liquid.

OK, it wasn’t in a clear plastic bag but then the only reason for it to be in one is to limit the amount of such things that you can carry on and so that the security people can see it. A 30ml bottle is all of 3% of said limit.

Yes, it was only luggage scales, but what if he’d just forgotten about something else peculiar? Those scales weren’t even looked at despite me reminding him that he needed to look at them several times.

So, no, that extra technology is totally dependent on the security staff and, at the moment, those security staff aren’t as well trained as they could and should be.

Related posts:

1. Do you use practical luggage?
2. Flavour of the month: information security
3. Are all the airport security people fat?
4. Squeezing the social security cash out
5. Adjusting to new technology

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.