The IT crowd – Outsourcing Dubai 2011

DELEGATES and speakers on day one of Outsourcing Dubai 2011 weighed up the merits of external IT providers against potential risks to security.

“IT solutions are available from leading suppliers off the shelf, and many is the airline who has made the mistake of trying to reinvent the wheel,” Stan Wraight, chief executive officer of Strategic Aviation Solutions International, said.

The arguments are strong for outsourcing, but that ever-present concern of security rears its ugly head whenever IT providers approach airlines and freight forwarders. Wraight put the question to Christian Cavez, director of customer services at Champ Cargosystems, and Sandeep Fernandes, market development manager, Mercator.

“We carry out isolation [procedures] on hardware, software and networks. Each of our different customers [data] is isolated,” Fernandes replied.

Cavez, however, is keen to take things even further. “I would prefer biometrics [where a fingerprint] reader is placed by the computer.”

This may prevent hackers and terrorists from stealing sensitive information, but it may not prevent the government getting its hands on it.

For the full story and other news of the conference read issue 705 of Air Cargo News, dated 23 June.