CISF to install body scanners at THESE six major airports soon

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The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will be installing body scanners at major airports including Delhi and Mumbai. The trial run of body scanners has been conducted at Delhi, Bengaluru, Cochin, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai airports recently wherein some shortcomings were observed, as per officials. 

"Now, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has constituted a ‘technical sub-committee' to examine, evaluate, and to recommend trial directives and testing protocols of Full Body Scanner," officials said.

The CISF officials also said that it had tested two technologies -- backscatter X-ray and millimeter wave technology and the force has decided to adopt the latter one because of the lesser radiation emitted from it. However, the pandemic delayed the installation process and now it is a top priority of the stakeholders, they added.

The CISF has also conducted a trial run of the ‘Body Worn Camera’ which was conducted at Delhi and Mumbai airports. This camera records the conversation between the CISF personnel at airports and the passenger.

Citing an incident, a top official in the Force said that a passenger charged towards security personnel after being asked to remove his shoes but his aggressiveness got subdued as he noticed a wearable camera on the body of the security personnel recording his movement.

The Force has also conducted trials of the latest scanning machines, known as CT-XBIS (Computed Tomography) for cabin baggage. This X-Ray machine or device combines Computed Tomography (CT) imaging system with an advanced Explosive Detection System (EDS), which provides enhanced, real-time, high resolution, and three-dimensional images of the object being screened at airports.

It has a feature of detecting explosives concealed in the luggage with accuracy and can highlight the same by displaying clear and sharp images, the officials said.

Following the instruction from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on biometric-based digital processing of passengers at Airports called "Digi Yatra", a pilot project of Digi Yatra was conducted at Mumbai, Varanasi, and Bangalore airports.

The Digi Yatra envisages a connected ecosystem enhancing the seamless travel experience for the passengers and simultaneously improving security. The CISF along with BACS is planning to install the 'Facial Recognition System' and the trial run of Digi Yatra has been conducted at Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Delhi Airports.

The officials also said that the CISF is also working on an express security check-in facility for passengers at a few places.

Under this system, the passengers travelling with only hand baggage are not required to go into the check-in area but to the Pre-Embarkation Security Check (PESC) area directly. The officials said that this E-Expressway corridor will be implemented soon at all airports under CISF.

The CISF is providing security at 64 airports at present including Joint Ventures and Public-Private Partnership operated airports.

(With inputs from IANS)