Though they still do the odd manual stop and search in my experience. When my son and I were returning from Singapore a couple of years ago, my son had bought a guitar over there and had it in a gig bag strapped to his back in the immigration line as we came back into Australia.

Immigration let everyone through without question, but as soon as they saw him with the guitar they asked him to step forward to an inspection point. I went along to observe, and it was quite interesting. The guy and the lady at the inspection desk asked him to put the guitar case flat on the desk and open it to remove the guitar.

While he did this, I noted that they never took their eyes off his face. They never even glanced at the guitar or the case. He was halfway through taking it out when they told him it was all OK and to stow it away again and be on our way.

I had always heard that the officers watched for your reaction which 9 times out of 10 gives the person away if they are trying to hide something, but this was the first time I had witnessed it first hand.

For the select few with the right citizenship. Everybody else queues up to talk to immigration. During busy time it can take 2h. The self serve kiosks are not the norm.

I went to Australia and there are still passport officers. The last one told me she liked the joke on my tshirt. But again, in Australia when there's a terrorist attack, they create an #illridewithyou trend on Twitter... Not everything is pink, but they at least have a good go at trying.

They still swoop in and perform random tests and interviews on people, even happens when you're a Australian citizen LEAVING the country. Last time I flew to LA, I had a customs guy give me a really limp-wristed frisking.

Canada has self-serve kiosks for the paperwork, but they print a ticket which you hand in to an agent, and (depending on how long the line is) they usually ask a few questions before they wave you on.