Canada is reportedly mulling imposing a ban on electronic devices larger than smartphones in the cabin of flights arriving from certain Middle Eastern and North African countries, similar to the ban announced by the United States earlier this week. The regulation requires passengers arriving from these countries to store laptops, tablets and other electronic devices in their checked luggage. According to a report in Canadian daily The Globe and Mail, Canada's Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the country is reviewing intelligence from the United States to determine whether is should follow suit on the ban. Britain has also begun enforcing an on-flight electronics ban, with other European Union countries considering implementing restrictive measures as well. The U.S. ban includes nine airlines and flights from 10 airports in Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Turkey is protesting the new regulation, and there are reports that its objection may lead to having the ban lifted from Istanbul's airport. In Britain, the ban applies to six countries -- Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia -- rather than specific airports or airlines. Meanwhile, the carry-on electronics ban had a former Israeli airport security chief shaking his head on Wednesday. "I don't quite understand the decision," said Pini Schiff, former head of security at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International Airport, pointing to security gaps in the new rules that anyone aiming to smuggle explosives on to a commercial airliner might exploit. Schiff said the ban still leaves open the possibility of hiding explosives in a device packed in luggage in the hold of an aircraft, or smuggling a bomb into the seating area of a connecting flight to the United States or Britain. "What can explode in the plane while it's in a passenger's hands can also explode in a cargo hold, because if you put a timer or a barometric pressure switch on it, you endanger the flight to the same degree," he told Reuters. Recalling the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 by a bomb that Libyan agents hid in a radio-cassette recorder in the jumbo jet's hold, Schiff said electronic devices like laptops and iPads have long been subject to scrutiny at airports around the world. But, Schiff added, "there are airports in the world where the level of screening and expertise of the screeners is not that high, and subsequently there is a level of risk here". As an example, he said the level of security at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport was lower than that at airports in Western Europe. Not so, Schiff said, when it comes to Ben-Gurion airport. "Screeners at Ben-Gurion attend a course lasting several months until they are certified to operate a screening device. Things are different overseas. I don't want to disparage anyone, but it's different," he said. "At Ben-Gurion, we have been operating an HBS -- Hold Baggage Screening -- system for the past two years that examines 100% of the baggage of departing passengers. ... It works on the same principle as medical CT scans," Schiff said, referring to computerised tomography that combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles. "A suitcase that is not cleared 100% does not make it to the plane," he said.
