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A great deal has been done to make us all safer, but far too little to make sure that we are safe from the global terror and criminal threat. So wrote the secretary-general of Interpol, Ronald K Noble, ahead of the tenth anniversary of 9-11.
He wrote: โCitizens now submitted to stringent physical security checks in airports would be incredulous to learn that 10 years after 9/11, authorities today still allow one-out-of-two international airline passengers to cross their borders without checking whether they are carrying stolen or lost travel documents. Yet all the evidence shows us that terrorists exploit travel to the fullest, often attempting to conceal their identity and their past by using aliases and fraudulent travel documents. This global failure to properly screen travellers remains a clear security gap, all the more deplorable when the information and technology are readily available. Currently, less than a quarter of countries perform systematic passport checks against Interpolโs database, with details of 30 million stolen or lost travel documents. This failure puts lives at risk.โ
He warned also of crime online: โCyberspace can be both a means for, and a target of terrorism and crime, undermining the critical infrastructure of governments and businesses. Yet until now there has been no meaningful effort to prepare countries to tackle this global threat.โ
For a download pdf of the full article visit the Interpol website –
