A red line appears on the computer screen as a man with a dummy gun and a fake suicide vest under his jacket demonstrates a body scanner at a counter-terrorism technology fair in London on Tuesday. Unlike traditional airport security gates, the scanner can be hidden as large numbers of people walk past and uses technology originally developed for the European space programme to monitor the ozone layer.
The invisible barriers were among hundreds of cutting edge gadgets on show at Security and Counter Terror Expo, where transport security provided a key focus following the terror attacks in Brussels last month targeting the city's airport and metro system. "We've certainly seen more demand for this technology than ever before. Clearly the global security context is accelerating that," said Zak Doffman, chief executive of Digital Barriers, the British company behind the ThruVis scanner being demonstrated.
Drone makers, bomb disposal and border security specialists were among the 240 exhibitors at the fair, where facial recognition technology, data protection and bomb detection equipment featured prominently.
"The global terror threat is high and transport networks are a favoured target," organisers said in a statement that referred to the increasing sophistication of recent terror attacks. Europol chief Rob Wainwright also spoke at the conference, referring to recent attacks in Paris and Brussels as "the most serious international terror threat that we've seen for a generation".
"We're faced with a more complex threat," he said, highlighting the growing use of social media to co-ordinate attacks and the importance of intelligence sharing at a European level to disrupt terror networks. David Thompson, the expo's event director, said: "With the safety of millions of people on their minds, security professionals have an increasingly important role to play as the threat evolves".