Agencies

London, Jun 29: In a move that has alarmed privacy advocates, airlines plan to monitor every move of passengers, including conversations, through a new security system which is being developed to tackle terror threats on flights.

Experts at Reading University are working on to develop a software to detect suspicious behaviour of passengers on board aircraft with the help of a combination of cameras, microphones, explosive sniffers and a sophisticated computer system, the Telegraph reports.

The research team, headed by James Ferryman, has already conducted trials of the camera system on a British Aerospace plane and the computer system on a mock airbus.

The software can scan unusual behaviour or events, such as unattended luggage or an individual going against the crowd flow. Microphones would eavesdrop conversations and alert the deck if anything suggests terrorist behaviour. Explosive sniffers would be able to detect if a bomb is planted.

All this information would be analysed by computer and if it spotted something untoward, the flight deck would be told instantly, the paper said.

The research has alarmed Gus Hosein of campaign group Privacy International and London School of Economics lecturer. "This is getting out of control. An aeroplane is not a privacy-free zone," he said.

A department for transport spokesman said: "We have no plans to instruct airlines to install this system on their planes".

Similar systems have been deployed at stations and airports around the world, using CCTV to gather information and software to analyse it. "What we are doing is extending technology already used at airports and railway stations and placing it on an aircraft," Ferryman said.

Cameras dotted around an aircraft would look out for abnormal activities such as several flyers entering a lavatory at the same time or individuals seeming agitated.