SAFETALK

Theft of intellectual property and confidential information is a growing threat to a large number of businesses, influencing their competitiveness in the global knowledge based economy. This project aims to deliver a low-cost prototype security system in the form of a walk through portal that will allow the detection of electronic devices such as cameras, dicta-phones and memory sticks carried on the person, even when they are switched off. This allows secured areas to be kept free from devices that may be used for information theft.

The system being developed uses the characteristics of electromagnetic waves scattered from the non-linear junctions inside electronic devices to infer the presence of the device and also to provide a signature for matching to a database. A novel distributed antenna system has been designed, allowing an optimum electromagnetic field to be generated in the volume of the portal. The bio-electromagnetic effects of the presence of a person in the portal are being quantified by computational simulation to ensure adequate performance of the detection system and the safety of the users.

Members

Andy Marvin

Stuart Porter

Linda Dawson

Ian Flintoft

Funding

EU FP6-SME Project 32585

Links

EU CORDIS

York Research Database (Publications, Related Projects, etc.)

Dates

January 2006 to
December 2008

Research