Security tags for travellers

Travellers would be tracked through airports via chips in plastic wristbands emitting radio signals. …

Scientists at UCL, where a new Centre for Security & Crime Science will open today, are helping to develop the Optag system. …

Passengers would be tagged on entering an airport or at check-in. Sensors, accurate to three feet, linked to a database of passenger information, could update locations every second. … Dr Paul Brennan [UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering], said: "If the pattern of behaviour was suspicious you could take action.''

Other uses of Optag could be to track late passengers and lost children, and to ensure airports are fully evacuated.

Meanwhile, Professor Robert Speller [UCL Medical Physics & Bioengineering] is developing sensor technology to detect explosives or drugs from the way they scatter X-ray photons and a device for locating radioactive contamination.

Nic Fleming, 'The Daily Telegraph'