In this ISJ exclusive, Aurélien Guilbert, Managing Director of Smiths Detection discusses how security screening positively impacts cargo and checkpoint security.
Can you tell me about your role at Smiths Detection?
My name is Aurélien Guilbert and I am the Managing Director for France and Vice President for Cargo Inspection Systems at Smiths Detection.
I am responsible for both operational delivery and the long-term development of our high-energy cargo and vehicle inspection capability.
A key part of that is leading our Cargo Inspection Systems centre of excellence in Vitry-sur-Seine, where teams develop, manufacture and test high-energy inspection systems used by customs authorities, ports and border agencies worldwide.
My role sits at the intersection of customer needs and technology delivery, ensuring our systems support effective risk-based inspections while helping operators maintain throughput, consistency and accountability in live operations.
What are the biggest challenges facing cargo and checkpoint security today, and how is the industry responding?
The pressure point is the same across cargo and checkpoints: threat diversity is increasing while tolerance for friction in operations is decreasing.
On the cargo side, customs agencies are dealing with growing volumes and a proliferation of small consignments driven by e-commerce, which makes targeting and inspection harder at scale.
At the same time, illicit markets keep evolving, particularly in synthetics and new psychoactive substances, which complicates identification and enforcement.
At checkpoints, the challenge is sustaining detection performance with finite staffing, while maintaining acceptable passenger or workforce flow.
The industry response is moving towards a layered model: better upfront data and risk assessment, as well as higher quality screening supported by decision tools that reduce variability and speed up resolution.
This direction is consistent with the World Customs Organization focus on securing and facilitating trade through risk management and advance data.
How is AI and automation changing the way threats are detected in security screening?
AI is shifting screening from “operator-only interpretation” to consistent, assisted decision-making at scale.
In practice, that means three things:
- Real-time decision support that highlights potential threat objects and reduces cognitive load
- More consistent outcomes across shifts and sites, helping standardise performance
- Better use of people, because automation can triage low-risk items and focus operator attention where it matters
For example, our iCMORE family uses AI-powered object recognition to flag concealed threats and contraband across baggage, cargo, vehicles and containers, supporting faster and more consistent decisions.
Automation is also enabling new operating models, including remote or centralised image analysis and performance analytics across multiple locations.
A recent deployment connected multiple sites into a central screening network, improving utilisation and reducing operator hours while strengthening controls against insider risk.
What recent innovations at Smiths Detection are you most excited about and why?
Three innovations stand out because they improve detection outcomes without slowing operations:
- Augmented X-Ray pairs AI with matrix detectors offering around six times the resolution of conventional detectors, extracting more usable detail per scan and speeding up accurate decisions, especially on dense loads
- iCMORE applies AI object recognition to cargo images to flag concealment patterns quickly, including in harder-to-check consignments such as refrigerated containers, improving consistency and reducing time to resolution
- X-ray diffraction strengthens substance identification by distinguishing materials that look similar on standard imaging, for example medicines or sugar versus narcotics, cutting unnecessary secondary checks and keeping pace as synthetic drugs evolve
With security systems becoming more connected, how important is cybersecurity in modern screening solutions?
It is fundamental.
Once screening systems become connected, cybersecurity is no longer an IT concern; it becomes an operational integrity and safety requirement.
Connectivity increases capability (shared images, centralised review, analytics), but it also increases the attack surface.
The priority therefore is security-by-design: secure architecture, controlled access, auditability, patch discipline and clear governance for how data is stored, moved and used.
We have invested in formal information security controls, including ISO 27001 certification at our Vitry-sur-Seine site, to provide assurance around how customer data and systems are handled.
At platform level, our Central Image Analysis approach is designed to integrate multi-vendor devices into a single, scalable, cybersecure operating layer, which matters as customers increasingly run mixed fleets.
How do you see the global security screening industry changing over the next five to ten years?
Over the next five to ten years, the direction is clear, more volume, more complexity and less tolerance for friction.
That combination will push the industry towards automation and AI to protect security outcomes without creating bottlenecks.
At the same time, as systems become more connected, data sharing will move from optional to standard, making governance, integrity and cybersecurity central to performance, not a separate consideration.
What changes most:
- Diffraction becomes more mainstream, because it answers the “what is it?” question faster and more precisely, reducing unnecessary and time-consuming secondary checks
- High-energy container inspection shifts from 2D towards 3D, improving interpretability on dense, complex loads and enabling more reliable resolution
- AI becomes a standard decision layer, flagging anomalies and concealment patterns beyond human capability and improving consistency across operators, shifts and sites
- Open architecture and certified data exchange become expectations, because the value is not only the image but its integrity, traceability and secure sharing across the inspection ecosystem
