Opinion (JesuÃna Strap / Commissioner PSP): Airport security at international airports. The mission of PSP.
Civil aviation is an indispensable resource to the progress of our country, in recent years it has had a strong increase in the resulting wide range of travel at reduced prices.
JesuÃna Correia
Commissioner PSP
Master in Sociology
Deputy of Airport Security Division of the Metropolitan Command of Lisbon
Lets move millions of passengers, as well as thousands of tons of goods, thus becoming an economic development engine, with great impact on the tourism sector.
This development led to the implementation of rules and procedures that balance the facilitation of the economic side of the business, characterized by the speed of passenger flows, goods and commodities and based on quality of service, in conjunction with the safety of operation, infrastructure, of people, goods, in accordance with international legal instruments, European and national.
This sector is underpinned by European civil aviation safety legislation: Regulation (EC) No 300/2008 the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2008 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1998 Commission, of 5 November 2015, as well as national legislation: the National Civil Aviation Security Program (PNSAC), as well as other regulations and plans applied internally, to improve the safety and security of airport infrastructure, namely the international airports, as well as the people who use or operating there.
To the Public Security Police (PSP) Racing implement the measures set out in European legislation, no PNSAC, in the Security Program Airport / Airfield and in its organic law, as well as contribute to the prevention and repression of acts of unlawful interference against civil aviation safety, according to their internal security duties, in international airports and national airports implanted in its action zone.
Are acts of unlawful interference any act or omission that endangers the safety of an aircraft, airport, air navigation installation, member of the crew, passengers and goods and people on the ground.
The PSP plays a key role in the safety and security of the entire airport community, in the context of civil aviation safety by exercising powers at international airports, as well as in the prevention and repression of organized crime, especially associated with the luggage theft and denounced crime, whose most participated crimes are against property, highlighting thefts, breach of trust and misappropriation of found something. This is reflected not responsabilidade No.. 2 do artº. 3º. of its organic law, L. No. 53/2007, of 31 August, I assigned him the surveillance and protection of sensitive points, particularly airport infrastructure.
Thus it is for the PSP, under the security of the national airfields deployed in its territorial area of ​​competence and airports able to process non-EU flights, ensure permanently, the protection of people and infrastructure, preventing acts of unlawful interference, through the following missions:
1 – Ensure the operation of the Security Operations Center Aerodrome (THING).
The COSA is the coordinating body and the direction of the airport security operations, monitors the automatic access control, CCTV and makes the management of telephone and radio communications;
2 – Develop and implement a plan rounds, surveillance and other physical checks of airport facilities, based on a risk assessment, to submit to the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC). Patrols and surveillance aim to identify suspicious behavior and vulnerabilities that can be exploited for the practice of acts of unlawful interference and to deter persons from committing such acts;
3 – Issue prior opinion on the issue of airport identification cards, enabling access to airfields located in its territorial area of ​​competence and airports able to process non-EU flights, to candidates who have a profile that is consistent with the development activities, in areas considered as fundamental in the field of civil aviation security, particularly in the security restricted areas;
4 – Ensure the guard and the internal and external patrols of the airfield and the respective support infrastructure, namely, inherent to the provision of air navigation services and parks fuels. The patrols allow you to control the boundaries between landside and airside, areas of the terminals and adjacent areas with public access, including car parks, the access to the airport, review the validity and ownership of airport identification cards and free transit of vehicles operating on airside, and check hold baggage, load, mail, flight supplies and mail and air carrier materials, stored in critical parts waiting to be loaded;
5 – Ensure public order and peace and security and protection of people and property. Aimed at minimizing the risks and threats identified to the civil aviation industry and airport security: terrorism, organized crime, the overall crime and internal threat;
6 - Remove the aircraft unruly passengers who have committed aboard pipelines (crimes and / or offenses) that create danger to the safety of aircraft. Examples of such illicit actions: disobey the order or legitimate instruction designed to ensure safety, good order and discipline on board, given by the aircraft commander or any crew member on your behalf, when passengers close the toilet to smoke; when spread false information about the flight, causing alarm or unrest among the passengers, for example by indicating which is a bomb on board the aircraft.
7 – Coordinate, within their powers and duties, the set of actions relating to the various contingency situations. These occurrences can result from during a certain flight, in Portuguese airspace, the aircraft commander verify the existence of a technical fault: malfunction in the landing gear, engine failure, among others. Occurrences may also result in airport infrastructure, in case of fire, natural disaster, bomb threat;
8 - Protecting the border. The National Strategy for Border Integrated Management, embodied in the Resolution of the Council of Ministers No.. 104/2017, of 18 May, granting a relevant role to PSP, in coordination with all other forces and services within the borders through the Airport Security Divisions. The PSP is responsible for participating in the control of the entry and exit of people and goods from the national territory, contributing to the prevention of irregular migration, through surveillance carried out at airports, as the authority with security expertise and monitoring of international areas and other sensitive areas of these infrastructures.
9 – Ensure search, detection, removal and deactivation of explosive devices;
10 – Make the aircraft-making, illegal intervention object, in situations where this is required.
Compliance with these missions, fall into three categories: general policing, civil aviation security and border protection, requires the performance of the PSP in the national airports, while full police, which brings together the various valences and is characterized by operational measures that are to be planned and implemented in an integrated and coordinated manner, in order to maximize the effects of a global strategy of action.
The police intervention rests on the relationship between the various police valences and levels of intervention, in short: community policing or proximity; prevention and reaction, the commitment of adequate human resources to each level of intervention, patrolling the proximity agents, the Rapid Border Intervention Teams, to crime prevention brigades to the use of Special Police Unit, with the commitment of the Intervention Corps, Special Operations Group, among other subunits that Unit.
Visibility is one of the decisive factors for the prevention of terrorism, General crime and other acts of unlawful interference. So, PSP has strengthened the implementation of security measures at the land side of the airport infrastructure, for the protection of soft targets, people and / or things that are relatively unprotected or vulnerable, especially terrorist attacks, to minimize risks to security in and around an international airport.
Because, in the last times, we watching an increasing number of incidents and attacks near airports, examples of attacks on Zaventen Airports, in Brussels – Belgium (22MAR2016) and Ataturk, Istanbul - Turkey (29JUN2016), which clearly shows the intentions of terrorist groups and denotes the intention of creating global impact, while confirming that increasingly there is a meticulous study of the targets and planning of operations.
Airports are beloved targets of terrorist organizations, justified by the multiplicity of concrete targets available and the potential production of a large number of victims, the high media coverage and the effect of terror and insecurity, in addition they can cause problems to the economy and disruption of societies. Besides the terrorist threat, civil aviation, It has also been used by criminal organizations in several activities, from drug trafficking, illegal immigration, human trafficking, smuggling, among others.
In this context, the risks and threats to the security of civil aviation and airports obliged to review and permanently update the implementation of security measures involving, among others, the access to public areas and to restricted or reserved areas, control of passengers and baggage, demonstrating that the risk analysis and threats have a major character in the consecration of these measures, to reduce vulnerabilities.
In this vein, restructured to policing models, from the community or proximity to the ostensive, with use of suspicious behavior detection techniques and spotting. In order to protect the normal operation of airports, developed also policing oriented models for illicit commercial activity, in this context is the activity carried out by people who illegally promote plasticizing activity baggage, Luggage shipping applications not belonging to the own passenger, the effects brought by individuals commonly called "candongueiros". And improper loitering, in this situation fall into homelessness, people who wander or remain in the areas of this airport with no intention of embarking or use the services provided by airports.
The PSP seeks daily to ensure a better quality of service in the context of civil aviation security, to convey sense of security of all the people who go and work in the national airports, and to all the tourists who visit us, strengthening its image, both nationally and internationally, as a credible institution, worthy, prestigious, voted at the service of public safety and the rights of citizens.
