Actually
DERA (Defence Research and Evaluation Agency - part of which is now also known as
QinetiQ -
See also) are right now developing the use of the
Boarder Guard product (See also:
What Price Safety ?!) in conjunction with various other airlines (mine included).
Indeed on Tuesday I personally spent a
very long day - involved with it in a consultancy role - with the folks running the project at DERA, during which we were mostly determining how best to implement a substantial trial at several UK (and maybe some overseas) airports.
This prototype will likely include both scheduled & charter air carriers.
Thus far an implementation in December has been mentioned, which means that there is a
huge amount to do !
Ultimately the basis of DERA's plan is to integrate all the 'Security Services' and other (including international) agency databases and / or provide feeds to / from them, but much more than that I can't tell you ( as it's a secret
)
However initially, as proof if concept, it's been proposed to integrate the data of a certain government department, as well as implement a Disruptive Pax database; We're, to a some degree, still working out what the 'scope' is for the trial in order that when we finish the trial period we can then say (hopefully) that it has been a roaring success !
Nb. It is probably ok however to mention that to fund the project it's been proposed to cream off £1 of the PDT (passenger departure tax), which (imho) seems like a very worthy use of that money.
In any event, and to my understanding, BA were / are looking at attempting a unilateral project, i.e. going it alone - as in, they think they can do a better job in-house on their own than can the rest of us when all working / pulling together ............. shakes head in disbelief ............. but there again, just look at the state of BA these days !
Ps. Before any knockers jump in and say that I'm anti-BA, I'll point out that I'm also a BA share holder - which I believe entitles me to something of a say in as to how it is run.
[ 12 October 2001: Message edited by: CrashDive ]