Belgium has launched new security measures at Brussels Airport, taking counter terror tactics from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, according to Reuters.

The need for improved security came after the deadly suicide bombings on 22 March 2016. The attack at the departures area of Zaventem Airport claimed the lives of 16 people and injured over 150 more.

Since then the Belgium government has been revising security and implementing new strategies. As part of the project Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister and Security Minister Jan Jambon travelled to Israel in the Summer to learn Israel’s security systems in place at Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv.

At Ben Gurion, cars are stopped at a checkpoint and given a once-over by heavily armed guards and cameras that read license plates. People deemed suspicious are pulled over for further questioning and possibly full searches. Largely unnoticeable monitoring continues all the way to the terminal.

Jambon was impressed especially by how some of the measures were non-intrusive for passengers. “There, security measures are present but not visible all the time,” he said, according to Reuters.

As Belgium applies the lessons learned in Israel, the temporary tents outside Brussels airport that were used for passenger checks in the wake of the bomb attacks have been removed and now police officers newly trained in behavioral detection stand guard at entranceways, looking for signs of suspicious conduct among arriving travelers.

“This is not profiling on the basis of age, skin color or gender, it’s about detecting behavior,” Jambon said at the ACI Europe airport security conference in Brussels, according to Reuters.

Facial recognition technologies are part of the new security system. The number of cameras at the airport has been increased to 1,250, including ones to scan car number plates as they enter the airport perimeter.

The airport is also looking at other measures, such as remote bag drops to improve security, while staff have been encouraged to report any unusual activities, the report said.

Source: Arutz Sheva