PASSENGERS will be required to produce photo identification before boarding domestic flights as part of the biggest recommended overhaul of airport and maritime security since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US.

It’s understood the recommendation is contained in a report to be released today by the parliamentary joint committee on law enforcement into the failure of existing security measures to combat organised crime in the aviation and maritime sectors.

The committee is understood to have identified drugs as the focus of most organised criminality in the aviation and maritime sectors, but says tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, identity theft and high-tech crimes are also being committed.

Qantas is one airline believed to have argued against the mandatory use of photo ID, claiming that elderly people, infants and people who don’t have a driver’s licence might not be able to meet requirements.

However, the committee is believed to have rejected Qantas’s view, suggesting those unable to provide photo ID should produce a signed statutory declaration confirming their identity before boarding.

The committee, chaired by the Labor senator Steve Hutchins, also found that ”the e-ticketing process introduces further vulnerabilities, increasing the opportunity for organised criminal networks to exploit the sector for illicit gain”.

In addition to its call for a joint police taskforce in every state and territory to probe the maritime industry, the committee recommends forming ”a Commonwealth maritime crime taskforce that would act as a national Australian Federal Police-led ‘flying squad’, responding to specific intelligence and also conducting randomised audits of maritime and seaport security”.

The Herald understands the committee was provided with evidence by the Australian Crime Commission and other law enforcement agencies which led it ”to the view that serious and organised criminality in the aviation and maritime sectors poses a very real threat to Australia”.

Last year, a port crime taskforce was set up by state and federal police in NSW under a model the Victoria Police is considering replicating.

The committee’s report will pose a major challenge for the Gillard government, whose budget in May has forced staff cuts at the Australian Crime Commission, customs and the federal police. The three agencies would have to commit dozens of staff in the recommended overhaul.

The committee is expected to also call for more sniffer dogs at airports and also raise the prospect of introducing ”passenger profiling”, involving individual risk assessments of passengers being conducted before boarding.

Other recommendations are likely to include new laws to make it a crime to travel under a false identity, and the introduction of CCTV software that enables the recognition of number plates and faces.

The maritime sector is understood to have been found to be more vulnerable to organised crime than the aviation sector, due to the greater volume of goods passing through ports, with ports in Victoria and NSW judged to have the highest levels of criminality, according to advice provided by the crime commission.

The committee is believed to have found criminal gangs are using small boats and fishing vessels to import drugs, leave illicit consignments in the ocean and conduct meetings at sea. Police in Brisbane recently discovered 464 kilograms of cocaine on a yacht. Light aircraft have been used to conduct ”black flights” to smuggle drugs from neighbouring countries such as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The committee is understood to have found potential weaknesses in Australia’s capacity to monitor small aircraft coming from nearby countries, with an admission by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority that private aircraft did not require its permission to enter Australia.

The report is also expected to examine the role of the ”trusted insider” working inside transport hubs on behalf of criminal networks. Such insiders usually have no criminal records and have been employed in trusted positions within the aviation or maritime sector for some time.

The Sydney Morning Herald

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