InTheAirGuy

"Canadian airport to test ‘behaviour detection’ program"
"Expressions, behaviour to be scrutinized"
National Post, August 13, 2009

OTTAWA -- From the furrowed brow to the nervously tapping foot, security personnel will soon start studying air travellers' facial expressions and body movements to see if they could be criminals and terrorists.

Beginning next year, some air travellers will be scrutinized by airport "behaviour detection officers" for physiological signs of hostile intent -- in other words: screening for dangerous people rather than just for dangerous objects.

"It insists the officers do not use racial, ethnic or religious profiling."

Etc etc
.......

You can expect that Canadian implementation will be world class, above par, and leading edge.

I understand, in the first day of class, CAATSA will be learning the difference between a twitch and a twitter. Sort of like the difference between a turkey sandwich, and a turkey sandwich ground up in a blender.

I also understand that the Ottawa buffoons -- sorry, mandarins -- will insist that this will never result in another Arar-type situation.

Flews

What does this have to do with CAATSA?

And why the cynacism? Border services has been doing this for years, with great success I might add.

Israel, of course, leads the world in this.

Cheers,

DJ Bitterbarn

Something springs to mind about being better than average, when the average is so bad you'd have to make a concerted effort to be worse.

Something more politicized springs to mind about low-balling promises and then claming success when you succeed at simple things. But this is CATSA, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it's not politically motivated.

emcampbe

If done properly, this is actually a great idea. Of course, that's a big if. But properly trained security people can tell by various facial expressions, etc. a lot more than they realize now. They can tell the difference between the reactions you have, one that is a non-issue nervous twitch from just simply talking to someone in authority as opposed to one because they are planning on doing something evil.

Israel has been doing this for years now, quite successfully.

I realize the "if" is a big one.

jjclancy

It would be difficult (no matter what you think of those in Ottawa) for a security screening to result in deportation by immigration authorities.

neuron

The US CBP seems to be doing something like this (or at least what was personality profiling to me).

On a recent trip through the EWR immigration (thanks to a Porter trip -- cannot wait until they get preclearance/Nexus), the agent whose line I had joined was asking a lot of questions to the individual two ahead of me. Their conversation was both loud and (to me) comical. He had dropped a piece of paper as he approached the podium, so she asked him why he was nervous. As he stammered to answer, she said loudly why was he nervous. When he continued to stammer for an answer, she asked him what he had to hide. He finally coughed up a 'no'. She loudly said, I think you are hiding something, and then pointedly looked at the Inspection office. He proffered up a long-winded explanation -- just got off the plane, too much coffee, has to go to bathroom...

In my estimation, she made him more nervous than anything. From what I have learned about immigration questioning -- greet with a hello, slight, but not too eager smile, give mono-syllabic answers (no grunts, no tales of your vacation). Answer the question, single words at best. And yes, no twitching, shaking, or stammering!

Short hair Francis

The CBP are trained to do this and I believe it does work with some success especially on people that rarely cross the border. it personally took me awhile to get used to this. I also believe air/preclearence entry point are easier and more relaxing to cross for me than land point although I can't explain why? However for CATSA to do this, there are 2 issues with this. One is that this may freak-out first time domestic travellers which we probably dont want. The second is status people doing lots of small motion which may tempt the CATSA although in reality we are really just getting annoy because the kettles were taking so long going through security.

speaker

I think it's important to draw very strong distinction between CBP/CBSA and CATSA. Immigration/Customs officers are Law enforcement officers ("Peace Officers"), whereas CATSA screeners aren't.

Also how much you can assess someone's risk/danger level just by looking at facial expressions and body movements alone. It needs to be in context: family emergency, first time travel, waiting for an important phone call etc.... However CATSA will never get that context from the traveller because CATSA has no legal authority to ask you "why you are traveling", "why you seem upset/nervous/fidgety" etc... You don't have to justify yourself to CATSA for why you are traveling, doing so may bring a court challenge about the Charter Rights to travel within and out of Canada.

However in the US, that freedom of movement is not as explicit, and once again TSA does not question travelers in the USA (yet). Airlines may do so abroad before boarding USA-bound flights (CDG, AMS are the ones that I know of), but that takes places in other jurisdictions.

Israel may be a good example of effective screening, but is it desirable in Canada, which is faced with a different reality than Israel (and also a different pattern of domestic air travel)? Notwithstanding that Israeli-style pre-boarding interrogations would be unconstitutional in Canada, would I really want to show up 3hrs+ before my YVR-YYC flight for an interrogation?

BlondeBomber

"physiological signs of hostile intent"

Might be a lot of us after enduring a long security lineup where they are doing what we consider to be "stupid things"

Ken hAAmer

I'm not certain that all CATSA screeners are even primates.

acysb87

I have witnessed many of the CATSA screeners monkeying around,making some pax go ape sh!t ,you may be onto something

skofarrell

There's already an active topic on Canada's BDO program in Travel Safety and Security. Please continue the discussion here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ng-canada.html

Thanks
Sean
Moderator - AC/Aeroplan, Westjet, & Canada