Johnson Controls has been awarded a $1.2 million contract to upgrade security at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Intl’ Airport. Also winning an airport security contract is SAGEM Morpho, which will install biometric identity control technology in the restricted personnel areas of Paris, France’s two largest airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly.
For Milwaukee, Johnson Controls has already started to install 70 digital video cameras that will include units at 20 new locations in the airport. Jason Gorak, a Johnson Controls account executive, tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that with the new system, security personnel will be able to watch a person’s every step throughout the airport.
In addition, Johnson Controls is installing door-card readers for secure areas, which can be configured to use biometric screening, such as matching an electronic template of an airport worker’s fingerprint with the worker’s actual fingerprint recorded on a touchpad.
Michael Keegan, the assistant airport operations manager at Mitchell, says the airport needed a system that could be upgraded should the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ever require a biometric system. But he says biometrics is not completely proven. “So instead of throwing money at one, we decided to stick with what we knew,” Keegan told the Sentinel. The airport has opted for conventional card scanning technology for now, he said.
Biometrics will play a large role in SAGEM Morpho’s Paris airport installations, as fingerprint biometric technology will be used in authenticating the identity of more than 90,000 Paris airport employees with access to secure areas.
SAGEM will begin installing the systems by the end of the year. “With over 100 fixed and 15 mobile security checkpoints, this biometric system will be Europe’s largest airport staff identity control system,” said Jean-Paul Jainsky of SAGEM in a statement.
