Security expands under the eye of the Powerful Owl

Sometime in 2004, Australia hopes to be issuing passports biometrically linked to the legitimate holder, with an embedded chip holding biometric data for facial recognition, or possibly fingerprint or iris scanning, for live comparison with the person presenting.

This will start the process of cutting back a thriving trade in lost, stolen and "mislaid" Australian passports highly prized in shady circles overseas for creation of false identities, undetected movement of wanted individuals and illegal entry.

An international standards body, JTC1 is working on standard data formats for facial recognition, electronic fingerprint scanning (to replace messy ink prints) and scanning of the iris of the eye. JTC1 stands for Joint Technical Committee 1 of the International Organisation for Standardisation and the International Electrotechnical Commission.

Australia's participation is through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, involving Passports Australia, Customs and the National Office for the Information Economy. Driving the project is US insistence Australia implement new passports with biometric data on embedded microchips by October, 2004 if it is to retain its status as one of 28 states allowed visa-free entry to America.

In this year's Federal Budget, Foreign Affairs was allocated another $3 million towards biometric passports, $9.4 million to enhance communications security with Australian embassies and $9.8 million (over four years) to improve traveller awareness of security problems.

This is just one sample from a panoply of measures which are generating a rising flood of security-related tenders, at both Federal and State Government level.

Tenders for biometrics, the use of physical characteristics for personal identification, will appear with increasing frequency from now on. The NSW Police Force is currently seeking portable electronic fingerprint scanners, either for installation in police cars or, if possible, as handheld units. These will make it possible to identify an interstate criminal on the spot, compared to delays of up to a week at present.

Other biological identifiers include computerised facial recognition, palm prints, the iris patterns of the eye, audio visual speech recognition, analysis of keystroke pressure patterns, signature recognition and even a Pentagon-sponsored radar system to check the way people walk ("radar gait signature").

Recent tenders listed by TenderSearch highlight sustained prospects for physical protection tenders including video motion detection (VMD), access control, mobile duress (the ability to send a silent warning when attacked), system integration, maintenance, CCTV, floodlight, guardhouses and mobile patrols, screen monitoring and communications security.

TransGrid in NSW is seeking installation and upgrading of security at Buronga Switching Station, Broken Hill Substation and Yass Area Centre. NT Power and Water needed security access systems at Energy House, a workshop and a control centre. The Singapore High Commission is to have a perimeter security fence including motorised gates, guard house, external lighting and surveillance cameras.

Victoria's Department of Infrastructure in February this year mandated a review of security risk management for energy industries, to identify credible security threats, impact of disruptions, adequacy of current security including prevention, protection, response and recovery; and cost-effective security improvements.

One big improvement to consider is installing high definition colour digital closed circuit television cameras to get a clear, in focus picture. A lot of CCTV footage at present is blurred, out of focus and virtually useless frames from cheap black and white analogue security cameras, which might just as well not be there. A telemetry feed to off-site data storage would nullify intruder attempts to destroy or remove incriminating photographic data.

Complementing physical security is protecting vital Australian telecommunications and data processing from a rising flood of hostile overseas internet assaults. On May 12, 2003 the federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, launched a free national alerts scheme for owners and operators of Australia's national information infrastructure, sponsored by the federal Government. This is the AusCERT National Information Technology Alert Service. AusCERT is Australia's National Computer Emergency Response Team, an independent not-for-profit group based at the University of Queensland.

To come in the next few months will be a complementary reporting scheme, allowing subscribers to report suspect malign attacks on computer security to AusCERT. The Commonwealth is also setting up a Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) for the owners and operators of national critical infrastructure in Australia and in neighbouring countries.

In September last year TenderSearch listed a tender illustrating close co-operation with neighbours. This was for consultants to work with the APEC Transportation Working Group on sea and air container track and trace technologies, to help in security surveillance of container movements.

Finally, don't overlook the Australian Defence Department. In a TenderSearch-listed tender, it asked for advanced technology ideas under its Capability and Technology Demonstrators Program. This included perimeter surveillance equipment, passive sensors, counter detection and threat response systems among its interests. Much of the security interest is under the night-fighting NINOX project, named after a particularly robust nocturnal predator called Ninox Strenua, the Powerful Owl.

Christopher Jay is a writer for the Australian Financial Review. He is a regular contributor to its Tenderwatch column in the Friday Government & Business Section.

As published in the TenderSearch Magazine - Winter 2003 Issue