As readers will no doubt be aware, on Aug. 10, British police arrested 21 people suspected of plotting to blow up planes flying from the U.K. to the U.S. In the wake of these police actions, the U.K. Department of Transport issued new, stricter regulations limiting what passengers can take into aircraft cabins.

The press release of Aug. 10 specifically allows only the following - and everything must be placed in a transparent plastic bag, not in pockets (quoting exactly):

* Pocket-size wallets and pocket-size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags)

* Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets)

* Prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (e.g., diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic

* Spectacles and sunglasses, without cases

* Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution

* For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger) and sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags)

* Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (e.g. tampons, pads, towels and wipes)

* Tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs

* Keys (but no electrical key fobs).

All other belongings must be stowed in checked luggage.

As I read these rules, business travelers, such as the readers of this column, who may need to fly to the U.K. and back from the U.S. will have to consider some information security issues.

First of all, nobody is going to be bringing laptop computers, cell phones, PDAs or even watches onto the aircraft. That restriction means that confidential information stored on such devices (yes, my DataLink watch has confidential information on it) may now be exposed to greater threat than if the devices were kept with the passenger. Anyone planning to allow baggage handlers to have access to laptop computers and such would do well to act on security experts’ repeated pleas to use disk encryption.

On a personal note, my PDA uses strong encryption for confidential data, and my watch has a password on the “Note” section where I store such things as bank account numbers.

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, is Program Director of the Master of Science in Information Assurance program at Norwich University.