Airline passenger news and views

I just cannot believe that this is still being debate, Just build the damn runway and put some people to work rather than having them on the dole.
The Victorians had the right attitude, just build things that are useful and will last.

This type of monitoring is not new. The research being funded by the EU at Reading University builds upon behaviour analysis that has already been introduced in some railway stations and airports in Germany and I also believe in Madrid.
Cameras monitor human movement and the computer relates the captured information to patterns to detect the abnormal. Three people going into a lavatory or people staying there longer than expected are pretty typical patterns that would arouse suspicion.
The microphone installations on aircraft form part of a a two stage stratagem. If people are detected as suspicious in the airport, they may be routed to special seating or special surveillance may be applied to those seats. For these people, microphones will pick up conversation for analysis either in the air or on the ground.
Some of this technology has been fitted into AirBus pre-assemblies and is pretty much certain to become a reality.
The cameras and microphones are pretty standard technology. The clever bit is the computer analysis and that is where the privacy / human rights issues will flare up.