Curtain coming down on Security Theatre?

That which has long been the elephant in the room of airline security is now stepping on enough toes it seems. I am seeing more calls for profiling, which of course turns into "racial profiling" in the media and nattering classes, but some people are far more likely to cause certain types of problems than others.

The incoming head of Germany's airport industry association has called for Israeli-style passenger profiling to be introduced. Christoph Blume said that grouping passengers into different categories of risk could put an end to the ever-growing number of security checks. Detection equipment would, he argued, "at some point... reach its technological and operating limits". But the country's justice minister said there was a risk of stigmatisation.

The usual response to that is "Racism!" and there are those lines showing up in this BBC article, but the shift in tone is noticeable. This is fairly even-handed, something I haven't seen enough of from the BBC the last several years. No security is perfect is it's not going to bring processes to a grinding halt, so a bit of brainpower will tilt the odds in your favour while speeding things up.

The harsh truth is that young Muslim males are most likely to try to take down an airliner; there has been no example that I am aware of of elderly women or toddlers making the attempt. The argument can be made that the parents could smuggle things onto the plane using the kid, but the same risk assessment applies to the parents. If they seem dangerous, their kids warrant some more attention too.

High-risk passengers - those deemed more likely to carry out terrorist or illegal activity, such as organised crime, drug trafficking or espionage - would undergo more stringent security checks. This could mean anything from a bag search to a full body search.

"This way [through profiling], control systems could be more effectively employed for the well-being of all participants," the new head of Germany's airport industry association ADV said.

Here's the key takeaway though (emphasis mine):

Joerg Handwerg, a pilot for Lufthansa and spokesperson for the German pilots' association Cockpit, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that current security procedures were not working and profiling was common sense. "The current controls are foolish, because we waste resources by doing things that feign security but don't actually bring security," he said. Mr Handwerg suggested a points system could be employed to determine which passengers might pose a higher security risk.

I am not so optimistic to think that things will change quickly, or indeed at all, but it's nice to see some cracks in the slap-dash edifice of airline security. Still, until this calms down a bit and I can go somewhere without being treated like a criminal all of my vacations will be within driving distance.