OPED2 - "Profiling"

Airport "profiling"
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 there have been many discussions regarding "profiling" at airports. These discussions have been chaotic, with proponents and opponents firmly entrenched in their positions and talking past each other. The inability to have a useful and substantive discussion has mainly been due to the lack of a common agreement of what constitutes "profiling". The following is a very brief attempt to focus in on profiling, and to provide an example of a system that might be used for profiling airline passengers for increased scrutiny......

Profiling is *not* simply picking out a certain racial or demographic group for increased scrutiny. Besides being unethical and possibly illegal, this is also inefficient and of limited utility. The use of overly broad categories (e.g. Middle-Eastern looking males, dark-skinned men with beards, etc..) will only result in the identification of many people for increased scrutiny. This results in an increase in the dissatisfaction of the target group without a commensurate increase in real security. Profiling *is* the judicious use of a select group of specific criteria designed to shrink as much as possible the universe of subjects to be identified for increased scrutiny. These criteria need to be focused on the target that is to be screened for. By this means resources may be deployed effectively with a much higher probability of identification of the target, resulting in a real increase in security. For example, the following is a system that could be used for airport profiling. Each passenger would be assigned different weights for a number of criteria based on subject demographics, travel information, and environmental factors.

a) Demographic data:

Country of origin. A weight between 1 and 10 by country of origin, e.g. Saudi Arabia 10, Switzerland 1
Age - 18-40 +4 / >60 -4
Gender - Male +5 / Female -1

b) Travel information:

One-way ticket +4
Ticket purchase: >6 months prior to trip -2 / 4-6 months prior to current trip +1 / If < 4 months prior to trip +3
No luggage +2

c) Travel History:

A weight between 1 and 10 by country of visit for each overseas trip in the previous 3 years (e.g. France, Germany, U.K. +10, Iran +5, Hong Kong +2, Switzerland +1, etc.)

d) Residency/Citizenship Factors:

US citizen > 20 years -7
US citizen 10-20 years -3
US resident > 20 years -5
US resident 10-20 years -2

e) Environmental Risk factors = Alert Status

High alert +10, medium alert +5

Each passenger would be scored by the sum of their individual factor weights and the environmental factor. A score of 21 or greater would trigger increased security measures e.g. passenger interview, body search, hand check of carry-on luggage, etc. The environmental factor allows for the level of scrutiny to be proportional to the alert level - a higher level of scrutiny resulting when the country is on alert (FBI or CIA having received credible threats of possible terrorist actions)

For this system to work it would be necessary that:

The criteria and weightings not be public knowledge, to prevent terrorists 'gaming' the system.
The criteria be updated (both the individual criteria and the weightings) on a regular basis to ensure that the system evolves with changes in the threat profile.
While the system should be followed as much as possible, room needs to be left for human discretion e.g. security check of a person exhibiting excessive nervousness, etc.