by Jill Kermes | Jun 28, 2019 | Corporations, Federal, State and Local Agencies
With summer air travel expected to hit a new
record between June 1 and August 31 this year, travelers should
expect to see
longer lines at security checkpoints.
To address these challenges, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is hiring an additional 2,000 employees and employing new technologies like automated screening lanes and computed tomography.
360-degree Security View
As these changes move forward, implementing artificial
intelligence and machine learning technologies can also help reduce wait times
and increase the effectiveness of security screening.
In fact, experts suggest that AI and big data analytics can move
the screening process from the current single point in time analysis to a 360-degree
view of a person’s behavior over a broader time range by linking
data sets to identify risky behavior even before a potential bad actor gets to
the airport.
This thinking is in line with the recommendations from the
White House’s 2018
National Strategy for Aviation Security (NSAS). NSAS highlighted the importance of
strengthening aviation domain awareness through integration of open-source data
into existing air surveillance and law enforcement intelligence, collection and
analysis of advanced and anticipatory information, and layered and risk-based security
measures.
The International Air Transport Association is also working on a program to facilitate the exchange of critical security data. According to the Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac, “This is similar to the way that our safety colleagues work with data to do predictive risk analysis. This tool will provide early detection of changes to security environments in different parts of the world, so we can effectively deal with emerging threats and the impacts of changes to security procedures.”
The Role of AI
AI-driven technologies, like Lumina’s Radiance platform are another facet to the solutions being implemented in the U.S. and globally.
Radiance has the ability to comprehensively mine
unstructured data sources, whether across the open web, or among disparate,
legacy data systems. It ingests, integrates and analyzes those data sets,
searching against more than 6,500 terms related to aviation security.
The platform conducts nearly 135,000 searches across all
publicly-available data on the web, correlating names with these associated
risk behaviors and cross-referencing over 1 million queries into Lumina’s
proprietary databases of risk.
Then add to this open source search internal data sets such as passenger bookings and travel history – or in the case of insider-threats, employee-related data – and airline and airport security experts have an important tool to help predict and prevent threats.
Looking ahead
To be sure, integrating AI driven technologies like Radiance
are not a thing of the far of future. Research shows that 66%
of airlines and 79% of airports plan to implement these capabilities
across a wide variety of use cases by 2021. In fact, AI in aviation was valued
at $152
million in 2018 and expected to increase to
$2.2 billion by 2025. And,
passengers are ready for these technologies to help expedite their time at airport security and make their travel more
seamless. An online poll of UK passengers found that 68
percent of respondents would welcome AI at airports, and another study
found 65
percent would share additional personal information to speed up
processing at the airport.
Learn more about Radiance’s capabilities for the airline
industry here.
by Jill Kermes | Sep 18, 2018 | Corporations, Federal, State and Local Agencies
The very nature of popular music events makes them attractive for terrorists and extremely difficult to defend. Here are a few reasons why these targets aren’t going away.Open-air festivals and concerts provide a particular challenge for law enforcement officials charged with keeping people safe. Violent extremists have targeted these events to sow chaos and destruction in places where people should feel comfort and enjoyment.
Sprawling Event Venues & Loud Volume
Today’s event venues are often held in large areas of open space. In such circumstances, there are simply too many people unprotected from outside elements. Following an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017, Salman Abedi, a British citizen of Libyan descent, detonated a suicide bomb during concertgoer’s exit from the show. More than 800 people were injured, and Abedi took the lives of 22 individuals. Abedi had been a “subject of interest” for MI5 in 2015 and had been reported to authorities as many as five times by leaders of the Muslim community in Manchester, but the service had no reason to take further action at the time. The attack took place at the Manchester Arena, where approximately 14,200 people were attending the event. The improvised explosive device, packed with nuts, bolts, and screws to act as shrapnel, was detonated in the foyer of the arena following the last performance of the evening. The bomb was so deadly that it killed people over 65 feet away from the explosion’s source. The attack had added tragedy due to the type of casualties: out of the 139 people who needed hospitalization or were severely injured, 79 were children.
Cultural Significance
Soft targets like music festivals and concerts offer terrorists practical and symbolic value. The symbolism of attacking Westerners who are enjoying themselves is what makes it an attractive target. On November 13, 2015, three gunman stormed into the Bataclan theater in Paris and killed 89 people attending a heavy metal concert. In a night that was coordinated to the last detail, the brunt of the damage came in the tight, dark spaces of the concert hall. There was little security, as the perpetrators killed three people on the sidewalk in front of the venue and then simply walked in to carry out the rest of their attack. The killers were part of an ISIS cell operating out of Belgium and France and had come in response to French and American airstrikes in Syria. In the nearly three years following the incident, Paris’ music scene has almost returned to normal, but the ubiquitous police presence is a reminder that danger still remains.
Masses of People
Events with large crowds will always be attractive targets to extremists, whether the reason stems from religious extremism or a political motive. In the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, 58 people were killed when Stephen Paddock opened fireon a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 22,000 people were in attendance when Paddock began spraying bullets indiscriminately into the crowd. When a threat goes undetected before the attack, it can be very difficult to thwart once it is in motion due to the unorganized chaos that follows. Frighteningly, Paddock had reserved hotel rooms overlooking the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago a few months before the Vegas massacre and was reported to have searched online for information regarding Fenway Park and associated Boston music festivals.
Despite the efforts of officials in recent years to prevent attacks on soft targets, large-scale casualties have still occurred at musical events with an alarming frequency. Officials recognize that these targets are difficult to harden by their very nature. Therefore, new approaches are needed to detect and monitor relevant activity that may indicate the planning of such attacks.
Lumina’s risk sensing capabilities illuminate areas of emergent unrest by monitoring online behavioral patterns consistent with the means and motivation of attack planning. By predictively identifying these online behavioral patterns, Lumina empowers organizations and venues to identify and mitigate potential threats to their physical security.
oyment.
Sprawling Event Venues & Loud Volume
Today’s event venues are often held in large areas of open space. In such circumstances, there are simply too many people unprotected from outside elements. Following an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017, Salman Abedi, a British citizen of Libyan descent, detonated a suicide bomb during concertgoer’s exit from the show. More than 800 people were injured, and Abedi took the lives of 22 individuals. Abedi had been a “subject of interest” for MI5 in 2015 and had been reported to authorities as many as five times by leaders of the Muslim community in Manchester, but the service had no reason to take further action at the time. The attack took place at the Manchester Arena, where approximately 14,200 people were attending the event. The improvised explosive device, packed with nuts, bolts, and screws to act as shrapnel, was detonated in the foyer of the arena following the last performance of the evening. The bomb was so deadly that it killed people over 65 feet away from the explosion’s source. The attack had added tragedy due to the type of casualties: out of the 139 people who needed hospitalization or were severely injured, 79 were children.
Cultural Significance
Soft targets like music festivals and concerts offer terrorists practical and symbolic value. The symbolism of attacking Westerners who are enjoying themselves is what makes it an attractive target. On November 13, 2015, three gunman stormed into the Bataclan theater in Paris and killed 89 people attending a heavy metal concert. In a night that was coordinated to the last detail, the brunt of the damage came in the tight, dark spaces of the concert hall. There was little security, as the perpetrators killed three people on the sidewalk in front of the venue and then simply walked in to carry out the rest of their attack. The killers were part of an ISIS cell operating out of Belgium and France and had come in response to French and American airstrikes in Syria. In the nearly three years following the incident, Paris’ music scene has almost returned to normal, but the ubiquitous police presence is a reminder that danger still remains.
Masses of People
Events with large crowds will always be attractive targets to extremists, whether the reason stems from religious extremism or a political motive. In the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, 58 people were killed when Stephen Paddock opened fireon a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 22,000 people were in attendance when Paddock began spraying bullets indiscriminately into the crowd. When a threat goes undetected before the attack, it can be very difficult to thwart once it is in motion due to the unorganized chaos that follows. Frighteningly, Paddock had reserved hotel rooms overlooking the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago a few months before the Vegas massacre and was reported to have searched online for information regarding Fenway Park and associated Boston music festivals.
Despite the efforts of officials in recent years to prevent attacks on soft targets, large-scale casualties have still occurred at musical events with an alarming frequency. Officials recognize that these targets are difficult to harden by their very nature. Therefore, new approaches are needed to detect and monitor relevant activity that may indicate the planning of such attacks.
Lumina’s risk sensing capabilities illuminate areas of emergent unrest by monitoring online behavioral patterns consistent with the means and motivation of attack planning. By predictively identifying these online behavioral patterns, Lumina empowers organizations and venues to identify and mitigate potential threats to their physical security.
