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Comment by ddeck | Hacker News Reader

As am I. I get pulled aside for the explosives check around 50% of the time when departing on an international flight from Melbourne airport.

When I'm not tested, then there is typically another group being tested. They seem to utilize the testing machinery/staff close to 100% of the time, so if you're the next group of people as their finishing up, you're likely to be tested.

Not to say there isn't any bias, but I've never noticed a larger proportion of dark skinned/long haired/bearded etc. individuals being tested vs the departing passenger population.

I travel often and the Australian airports certainly seem to test a much higher percentage of departing passengers than other airports.

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Same situation - blonde haired, blue eyed white guy. For a while I was getting checked on every single flight I took, something like 10 flights in a row. I even asked why, to be told it was random - bullshit. Flipping heads 10 times in a row is not "random". They would stand there and wait for me!

I actually have a theory, which is that I (and yourself, and the GP) are targeted to provide deniability of racial profiling. Build up a buffer of whiter-than-white business guys and then no-one can accuse you of racism when you grab the person you really want. No idea if there's any truth to it but it's the only reason I could come up with.

I have no inside information on the following... but an effective explosive trace detection screen would go like this.

First, it would be random, with no profiling. Profiling gets defeated by shaving, change of clothing, etc. Random selection can't be defeated.

I would make it resistant to implicit profiling from the operators by saying "wear a watch, every time the seconds reach 0 you select the next person for screening."

Then, I would make it hard to dodge being selected by varying pace through screening, with a rule that "at the selection time you pick the next person through the metal detector, without giving passengers any indication that you've picked, and wait for your selectee who gets screened no matter how much they dawdle or how long the X-ray search takes".

Next time you fly you'll observe that the ETD procedure at Australian airports is consistent with this theoretical design.

I thought Shanghai had a pretty interesting system — they’d put about 10 people at a time in a “pen” made of Tensabarrier, swab all 10 with the same sample thingy and then test it. Once it came back clean they’d release them and take another group in. They were testing everyone but it went pretty fast.

Is their threshold adjusted to allow for composite samples, or is it a test that has no threshold and any of the residue detected is a fail?

I guess if a certain group fails the test they can just test each of those 5-6 people individually. Still saves time overall.

Flew from Melbourne International (AU) last week - exactly this happened. Group of us (5-6), swabbed, year, release, next group.

Fortunately they let you skip the hand-baggage inspection queue if you get inspected, so I’m usually happy to let them as it saves a good 15-20 mins.

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