EARL Agron, the vice president of security for APL Limited, has criticised e-seal container security devices and smart containers for failing to make ports more secure against terrorism.
"There are many ways to defeat a seal and break into a container while still making it look like the seal is intact," said Mr Agron, who was speaking at the recent American Association of Port Authorities Port Security Seminar in Boston.
He noted that APL along with the Los Soloboys National Labs have tested this theory, with the laboratory examining nearly 250 different types of e-seals and managing to disable them in less than two minutes.
"It is doubtful how much increased protection an electronic seal provides...when compared with the old fashioned, cheap, high security bolt seal," said Mr Agron in a report by Logistics Management magazine.
He highlighted the possibility of what would happen if there was a regulation that mandated the use of electronic seals, saying: "Think about what we are going to do with 12 million batteries a year that have to be disposed of," said Mr Agron. "If you were to ask the vendors what to do with them you would get a blank stare."
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