Chancellor Gordon Brown’s plans to seek a UK equivalent of the US Department for Homeland Security will cause alarm in the aviation industry.
The Chancellor told cabinet colleagues last week that the Treasury is seeking to establish an annual security budget of £2 billion.
The US government created the Department of Homeland Security after the September 11 attacks, along with a Transportation Security Committee.
It has spent more than $20 billion on airport security in the five years since, promising increased staff and state-of-the-art screening equipment.
Yet by this September just 70 high-tech scanners were in place at the country’s 440 commercial airports, and the number of airport security staff was down from 60,000 in 2003 to 43,000.
US congressman John Mica, who chairs the House Aviation Committee said: “The vast majority of airports are in a state of disarray.”
At the same time the European Union has been locked in a row with the US about privacy issues surrounding advanced air passenger data required by Washington. Now a data security company has warned business travellers to encrypt sensitive data on laptops or blackberries when travelling to the US.
Ultimaco Software managing director Jackie Groves said: “A traveller’s privacy is significantly compromised when arriving in the US.”
Whatever happens, a Department for Transport spokesman said: “The industry will continue to pay for security at airports.”