By Rebecca Morelle
BBC News   
The tag would track passengers' movements
Electronically tagging passengers at airports could help the fight against terrorism, scientists have said.
The prototype technology is to be tested at an airport in Hungary, and could, if successful, become a reality "in two years".
The work is being carried out at a new research centre, based at University College London, set up to find technological solutions to crime.
Other projects include scanners for explosives and dirty bomb radiation.
Dr Paul Brennan, an electrical engineer, is leading the tagging project, known as Optag.
He said: "The basic idea is that airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings."
The plan, he said, would be for each passenger to be issued with a tag at check-in.
He said: "In our system, the location can be detected to an accuracy of 1m, and video and tag data could be merged to give a powerful surveillance capability."
The tags do not store any data, but emit a signal containing a unique ID which could be cross-referenced with passenger ...   more »