By Jonathan Wardle
The Salt Lake City airport is testing out a technological device that may increase security in employee-access areas of the airport.
Last week Ingersoll-Rand Co., a company that makes hand readers, installed a hand-geometry reader at the airport. The reader was presented to the public on Monday, March 19.
'This hand reader is proven technology,' said Glenn Guthrie, a security and safety consultant for Ingersoll-Rand. 'It does work, and it will work every time in high capacity.'
Guthrie said Ingersoll-Rand Co. has given a trial-version of their hand reader to at least 30 airports in response to the Airport Security Act, which requires positive identification of airport personnel in areas of airports accessible only to employees. The act also requires positive identification of individual passengers at the airports.
Guthrie said the hand reader takes about 90 measurements of the hand and stores that information. The information can be stored on a database or on a card that can be carried with the user.
The system installed at the Salt Lake Airport maintains the hand geometry information in a database.
When a person presents an identification card, their hand measurements are compared with the hand measurement information of the card owner that is stored in the database.
'It''s very simple. With the person''s ID card, they would walk up and present the card to the card reader,' Guthrie said. 'When they present their card, it sends a signal to the reader asking them to place their hand on the hand reader and verify the correct person is in possession of the card.'
Right now the airport is testing out ways that the hand reader can be used to increase security, he said.
'We don''t have a plan yet,' said Barbara Gann, public relations director for the Salt Lake City Department of Airports. 'We''re just testing it, seeing how it works and how it can be used for us.'
Congressman Jim Matheson, R-Utah, helped to introduce the bill that became the Airport Security Act in response to the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11. Since then he has been promoting the use of biometric technologies to help increase safety in airports.
'He''s saying the technology''s there - it''s not futuristic,' said Alyson Heyrend, press secretary for Matheson. 'It''s more secure than anything we''ve got in place now. But if we''re going to enhance security, let''s take a big step forward.'
Matheson is promoting the use of biometric technology to positively identify all passengers as well as employees at airports. One solution he is looking at is a smart card system, Heyrend said.
The smart card system would store information about an individual on a computer chip embedded in a card, Heyrend said. The information stored on the card could include names, birth dates and a person''s hand geometry.
Heyrend acknowledged that any one technology used for positive identification, like the hand reader, might present issues to those with disabilities.
'Obviously, if you don''t have a hand to scan, then it won''t work,' Heyrend said. 'But there''s other biometric technologies.'
Heyrend said right now the government is trying to determine which is the best technology to use in positively identifying employees and passengers at airports.