Ensuring safer and more secure UK airports

Requirements 

We have been working under the Home Office Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) to create a central database of people who hold, or are applying for, passes to grant them airside access in UK airports In collaboration with Naimuri, we have delivered an accredited Minimal Viable Product (MVP) of the Access Pass Holder Information Distribution System (APHIDS).

APHIDS will enable the process of more stringent and regular repeated Accreditation Checks (AC) as required by EU and UK legislation from December 2021. Our approach was to develop a Proof of Concept using rapid prototyping and open source integration to demonstrate how the latest data and analysis tools and techniques could be used with data from more than 50 UK airports.

Solutions

Our solution was APHIDS; one secure system which National Intelligence, Law Enforcement Agencies, Border Force, Police Forces, Counter-terrorism Policing, National Crime Agency, airport Security Managers and ID Admin Teams can access to search, and query, pass holder information.

Benefits 

Our solution provided the customer with several benefits, including:

• Increased visibility of airside pass holders and reduced time and effort to access this information
• Improved ability to identify insider threats quickly and effectively
• Our capability to rapidly build a Mission Pilot
• Rapid querying against over 300,000 pass holders and related data
• Meeting European Union and UK legislation and providing a flexible service, future-proofed to integrate with other border security domains such as maritime ports

We delivered the MVP at the end of March 2020. Alongside Naimuri, we are now under contract from April 2020 to further develop and deliver the solution.

“BMT were instrumental in the successful delivery of APHIDS. BMT took ownership of getting the project through delivery gates and helped us understand what needed to be done and when. They were reliable and on point to answer any questions at any time.  The project’s success was largely down to their continued efforts and patience.”

Feedback from Home Office ACE.