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     passenger profiling

This page considers passenger profiling, something that is recurrently - and often bizarrely - promoted as a highly effective mechanism for managing threats posed by terrorists and drug traffickers.

It covers -

• introduction - what is passenger profiling?
• types - ethnic, behavioural and other screening
• issues - justice, effectiveness, cost and other issues
• legality - the status of profiling under national and international law
• practice - profiling in Russia, the UK and elsewhere
• attitudes - community stances on profiling
• studies - selected works on passenger profiling

     introduction

Passenger profiling has three aims -

• to identify individuals who might be threats to other travellers, eg might be seeking to destroy or take over an aircraft, bus or train
• to identify individuals who might be carrying contraband, in particular drugs
• to legitimate the existence of particular agencies.

It provides a basis for searches of individuals, with people who have particular characteristics being singled out for what can range from ad hoc scrutiny of baggage to detailed questioning and an inspection of body cavities. Its premise is that 'intensive' searching of every traveller is neither economically nor politically viable, so only 'suspects' should be bothered.

It also embodies - and for many people reinforces - perceptions that critics consider involve stereotyping and ethnic or other discrimination. It has been promoted as a key weapon in the 'war on terror', particularly in conjunction with use of watch lists and wider data mining activity. It has been criticised as both philosophically and administratively flawed, with claims for example that profiles can be readily subverted.

Contrary to claims by some enthusiasts, profiling is neither new nor scientific. It is evident in screening of incoming overseas passengers at Australian airports over the past 40 years. It is also evident in debates in US criminology during that period, particularly about racial profiling (searches of people 'guilty of the crime of driving while black'). It is not necessarily restricted to air travellers.

     types

In considering passenger profiling we can identify four types of profiles -

• demographic
• ethnic
• behavioural
• positive

In practice none appear to be wholly effective filters and many regimes use two or more profiles in conjunction with other tools.

Demographic profiling sorts people on the basis of attributes such as age, income and travel patterns. It is the basis of traditional border security regimes.

In Australia, for example it has been claimed over the past 30 years that you are more likely to be pulled aside for examination if you

• are young (particularly young and working class) and are returning from a holiday in Bali or other parts of Asia - the presumption being that you are more likely to be smuggling drugs on a one-off basis than a granny who is on the same flight
• recurrently travel to particular locations such as South America, the Middle East and China, especially on short stay visits - profiled as a drug courier
• an unaccompanied middle-aged male returning from Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines or other locations identified as permissive to 'sex tourism'

Ethnic (or ethnic/religious) profiling has gained attention through debate over discriminatory aspects of 'racial profiling' in air travel security since 9/11, with indications that both government agencies and airlines are concentrating searches on Muslims and on people from the Middle East.

It reflects an assessment that you are significantly more likely to be a terrorist if you are young, male, Islamic and have visited states such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Jordan and Iran. In practice that appears in some situations to be reduced to the slur that 'all Muslims are terrorists or want to be'. Precursors prior to contemporary jihads included profiling of Eastern and Southern European (particularly Jewish Eastern European) visitors and migrants to fin de siecle Britain, France, Germany and the US ... anarchism, pornography, epidemic disease and assassination were conceptualised as imported by excitable, poor and exotic foreigners.

Behavioural profiling relies on the observer's skill in detecting indications that something might be amiss. Unsteady gait, poor eye contact, perspiration, defensiveness in response to questioning and shakiness in handing over tickets or passports might signal that it is appropriate to question that person or conduct a detailed search of baggage.

The profiling concerns behaviour rather than ethnicity; it has had some success in detecting drug traffickers and terrorists who do not fit into the above templates. It is, however, heavily dependent on the skill of the observers and the availability of such observers.

Positive profiling, currently being promoted in the US, involves separating travellers into two groups: ordinary people (taken to be more suspect than their peers) and those bearing special traveller identification (gained after a vetting process and supposedly attesting that they are significantly less of a threat than the common herd). Those with a positive profile pass through security checkpoints more quickly and are less likely to undergo ad hoc examination, as are of 'known quality'.

Contemporary US schemes centre on the individual gaining a 'frequent traveller card', requiring a notional payment to offset the cost of personal vetting. The expectation, in the words of former US federal security supremo Richard Clarke, is "that allows the inspectors then to concentrate on people who they really don't know anything about".

In practice it is an extension of traditional demographic schemes and diplomacy that favoured elites. First class passengers (typically white, middle aged and middle/upper class) were assumed to have signalled their bona fides merely by wearing suits and having more resources than the lower classes. The bags and persons of diplomats enjoyed special protection.

     issues

Concerns regarding profiling essentially fall into three categories -

• effectiveness
• cost
• justice

Some of those concerns have led proponents to emphasise use of complementary technologies, including the tools discussed in subsequent pages of this note.

Critics have suggested that governments and transport network operators should instead

• rely on a basket of technological measures, including strengthening of aircraft bulkheads and deployment of advanced explosive-detection devices
• actively seek to avoid perpetuation of stereotypes, something that might involve an emphasis on purely random searches and concommitant public education about security principles.

That criticism reflects a respect for human rights. It also reflects recognition that terrorists aspire to set an agenda - "they do not do what you expect, they do what you least expect" - and may regard the inconvenience imposed by tightened security as a small victory for their cause.

Effectiveness

Security agencies are understandably reticent about their performance and it is difficult to benchmark particular practice. the effectiveness of much profiling is however unclear and caution should be adopted in embracing claims that an emphasis on "suspect groups", particular comprehensive examination of all members of a group, will necessarily and significantly increase security.

One criticism of much profiling is that it is easily subverted. If "long haired kids with a sun tan and a backpack" are targeted, use "desperate grannies or dads" as drug mules. If profiling centres on status, wear a suit and fly first class. If profiling and security is concentrated on air travel, blow up subway trains and buses rather than passenger jets. If ethnicity is the filter, use 'non-ethnic' agents (meanwhile arguing that security embodies racial/religious persecution). If names are targeted (one of the sillier comments is that "fanatical Islamic converts always use a new name"), illicitly obtain a legitimate passport, for example by using the identity of a dead child or simply bribing an official.

One contact thus noted detection by El Al staff at Heathrow in 1986 of an attempt to destroy one of its planes. White, female and Roman Catholic Anne Murphy had passed through the airport's security screening without trouble. El Al staff, apparently on the basis of behavioural profiling, discovered that her hand luggage featured 11 ounces of Semtex and a detonator in a calculator kindly provided by a boyfriend with links to the Libyan government. (El Al's attentiveness means that it is one of the safest airlines.)

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly more tartly commented

You think that terrorists aren't aware of how easy it is to be characterized by ethnicity? ... Look at the 9/11 hijackers. They came here. They shaved. They went to topless bars. They wanted to blend in. They wanted to look like they were part of the American dream. These are not dumb people. Could a terrorist dress up as a Hasidic Jew and walk into the subway, and not be profiled? Yes. I think profiling is just nuts

Other critics have commented that by identifying those classes who we believe should be subject to special attention, we are implicitly making life easier for those who do not fit that profile.

Cost

Passenger profiling is an attempt to solve a conundrum - significantly reducing security threats (and problems such as drug trafficking) without inconveniencing individual passengers and causing delays that increase costs borne by transport network operators and thence by passengers and taxpayers.

In practice much profiling appears to be about gestures rather than realities, legitimating governments and individual agencies - and more broadly reassuring people that 'something is being done' - without incurring true costs.

In the US and Australia, for example, there are recurrent indications that security at baggage handling at airports is poor, with incidents where handlers have appropriated baggage and have obtained jobs despite criminal records. Security staff engaged in passenger screening at US airports have been criticised as over-zealous, racist, criminal or merely incompetent - unsurprising as most are employed by the private sector, on low wages and with little training. Some are not even US citizens.

Comprehensive and more intensive screening of carry-on and in-hold luggage would impose tangible delays - highlighted in RAND's 2004 The Benefits of Positive Passenger Profiling on Baggage Screening (PDF) - that are opposed by most airlines and in practice are unlikely to be applied to surface mass transport systems.

Justice

One UK critic of contemporary passenger profiling commented that it introduces a new crime of "travelling whilst Asian", reminiscent of earlier US characterisation of the "crime of driving while black". Ethnic profiling is necessarily and inappropriately discriminatory. It has thus attracted criticism that it is illegal under international law, as discussed below, and should be illegal under national law because inconsistent with anti-discrimination policies. It reinforces perceptions that all members of a particular group are likely to be guilty of an offence and are undeserving of the protections afforded to other people by the justice system.

It can be contrasted with profiling that has a more substantive basis, eg behavioural profiling predicated on attributes other than gender, ethnicity or religious affiliation. It can also be contrasted with random investigation, something that is more likely to catch offenders who do not fit into a specific template.

     legality

Responses to the legality of profiling vary, given perceptions of threat, assessments of risk and exemptions in international and national law for public security (especially in locations such as borders).

Behavioural and demographic profiling, unsurprisingly, is permitted. However, most states (including Australia) make some effort to reduce arbitrariness of selection and minimise abuses in the conduct of searches (eg control inspection of body cavities).

In principle ethnic profiling is unlawful under international law, given the range of global human rights agreements prohibiting racial and ethnic discrimination. The United Nations Race Convention for example prohibits racial discrimination regarding "freedom of movement" and the "right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice".

The International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR) similarly prohibits racial discrimination in relation to "the right to liberty and security of the person", "arbitrary arrest or detention" and deprivation of liberty "except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law". The latter qualification is significant: states can and do establish laws and protocols that restrict the effect of non-discrimination principles in emphasing principles of public safety and national security.

Debate about balances between safety and discrimination has been reflected in a range of international and regional statements. The 2000 UN World Conference Against Racism for example exhorted states to "design, implement, and enforce effective measures to eliminate the phenomenon popularly known as racial profiling".

     practice

The Open Society Justice Initiative's 2006 report Ethnic Profiling in the Moscow Metro (PDF) indicated that riders on the Moscow Metro who appear non-Slavic are over 20 times more likely to be stopped by police than those who look Slavic. Riders who appear non-Slavic make up less than 5% of all patrons but account for over 50% of all people stopped by the Moscow Metro police.

     attitudes

Attitudes to ethnic and other profiling are distinctly mutable.

In the US for example whereas 80% of participants in a Gallup Poll condemned racial profiling in 1999, 58% of those surveyed shortly after 9/11 agreed that US airlines should subject 'Arabs' (including those who are US citizens) to special, intensive security checks before boarding flights.

     studies

Among the literature on profiling see in particular

• Measuring Racial Discrimination (2004) - US National Academies (PDF)
• James Goldston's 'Toward a Europe Without Racial Profiling' (2005) in Justice Initatives
• Sanctioned Bias: Racial Profiling Since 9/11 (2004) - ACLU
• David Harris' Driving While Black: Racial Profiling On Our Nation's Highways (1999) - ACLU
• Kevin Mullen's Dangerous Strangers: Minority Newcomers and Criminal Violence in the Urban West, 1850-2000 (New York: Palgrave 2005)

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