A push for ID cards to be used in Australia’s domestic travel

Fingerprint or iris scan-linked domestic flight passenger
cards are needed to ensure people feel safer and security scares such as last
month’s evacuation of Brisbane’s
domestic airport are not repeated, a security organization says. The Australian
general manager of Unisys, Andrew Barkla, told AAP registered traveler cards were already in use in the United
States to speed up security checks
and provide better safety. They should be used in Australia, he
said. The cards were issued by airports and used biometric information to
confirm a person’s identity and whether they posed a security risk, Barkla
said. “People can provide a level of their personal details and access to
their personal details like criminal record et cetera, and provide some
biometric information, say a fingerprint or something like that, and then be
given a card … to provide them with quicker access through airport security
and through airports because they are a known quantity, as opposed to the
general man or woman on the street,” he said. “I think it’s certainly
something that has shown great benefit overseas that could equally be applied
to Australia.”

Barkla said he believed Australians would be in favor of
such a card. A survey by the company late last year found around 98 percent of
respondents believed more needed to be done to make domestic air travel safer.
The same number believed all people should prove their identity before boarding
a domestic plane, something not currently done when checking in via web
check-in kiosks at airports, he said. Barkla said traveler cards could be part
of an across-the-board tightening of security in Australian domestic airports,
along with guaranteeing all luggage was screened in every city and regional domestic
airport. Tighter measures would help prevent security breaches such as when
nine people inadvertently bypassed X-ray checks in the Qantas terminal at Brisbane’s
domestic airport, causing its evacuation and flight delays. “I don’t think
any system is necessarily 100 per cent foolproof, but certainly there are
technologies that can be applied to minimize the breach of an area that should
be secure,” Barkla said. “I think any breach, again, is an
opportunity to step back and review why did it occur.”