Israeli airport technology detects intent of terrorists

By David Brinn

Built to replace human selectors or random check ups of visitors, the SDS-VR-1000 is based on the assumption that sophisticated terrorists might not be included in suspect lists. Not many terrorists walk into an airport waving a banner announcing who they are. They don’t carry handguns or try to conceal explosives as they debark from an international flight into the United States. And just as rarely do they have police records.

So how can US officials go about identifying potential terrorists? A new solution is Israel’s Suspect Detection Systems (SDS) – a company that has developed an advance automated filtering tool for identifying potential suspects with hostile intentions among masses of tens of thousands visitors.

Consider it a personal polygraph machine, that will make air travelers infinitely safer, says SDS CEO Shabtai Shoval, a former division manager at Comverse Technology who founded SDS along with former head of the Israel Police’s polygraph division Yeshayahu Horowitz and former deputy Mossad chief Amiram Levin.

“Our system makes an initial assessment within three minutes. If the system identifies a suspect, he can be sent to a personal agent to complete the investigation,” Shoval said.
Shoval explained that the inspiration his journey from Comverse to airport security was spurred by the September 11 attacks, as well as a viewing of a Tom Cruise movie.

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