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UK To Use "Risk-Profiling Software" To Screen All Airline Passengers and Cargo
dryriver writes "The BBC reports: 'The UK branch of an American company — SAS Software — has developed a hi-tech software program it believes can help detect and prevent potentially dangerous passengers and cargo entering the UK using the technique known as 'risk profiling.' So, what exactly is risk profiling and can it really reduce the risk of international terrorism? Risk profiling is a controversial topic. It means identifying a person or group of people who are more likely to act in a certain way than the rest of the population, based on an analysis of their background and past behavior — which of course requires the collection of certain data on people's background and behavior to begin with. When it comes to airline security, some believe this makes perfect sense. Others, though, say this smacks of prejudice and would inevitably lead to unacceptable racial or religious profiling — singling out someone because, say, they happen to be Muslim, or born in Yemen. The company making the Risk-Profiling Software in question, of course, strongly denies that the software would single people out using factors like race, religion or country of origin. It says that the program works by feeding in data about passengers or cargo, including the Advanced Passenger Information (API) that airlines heading to Britain are obliged to send to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) at 'wheels up' — the exact moment the aircraft lifts off from the airport of departure. Additional information could include a combination of factors, like whether the passenger paid for their ticket in cash, or if they have ever been on a watch list or have recently spent time in a country with a known security problem. The data is then analyzed to produce a schematic read-out for immigration officials that shows the risk profile for every single passenger on an incoming flight, seat by seat, high risk to low risk.'"
Whereas I believe it's unlikely to work, probably expensive, and manifestly open to being gamed.
Sigh.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Given the number of bad things that happen on airlines, the software could just assign a risk of "zero" to everything. This would be just as accurate as any other way of finding a non-existent needle in a haystack.
Now seriously, ! I'm tired of seeing the same bullshit again and again, just with different icing, to justify what's flawed from the very start. This shows that people taking decisions are tied to their own irrationally feelings and not paying attention to what science tells them.
I once read a scientific paper which recommends, if I remember correctly, randomly selecting 8% of the passengers for extended verification. This procedure has the advantage of transmitting zero information to the bad guys. If you start profiling, you give them a chance to test the system.
They now just have to find somebody which would score as low risk and they won't have any trouble.
What sig ?
A couple of years ago I went for an interview for one of these companies rather naively. Their product wasn't described as profiling, surveillance or monitoring but "adaptive security". After I finally cut through all the bullshit and worked out what they were actually selling, I bailed on it (with a proverbial "fuck you stasi bastards" and loss of the job agent). However I couldn't help noticing one thing:
The management staff were utterly convinced that this was the best way to go and that the entire world's problems were going to be solved by profiling in this way. I'm not talking about it being the marketing pitch, but actually some kind of crazy psychopathic paranoia about their own mortality in the hands of terrorists. I cannot fathom how these guys actually operate with this mindset at all. It was rather shocking actually and has permanently destroyed my acceptance of capitalism. It was literally like OCP or Weyland corporation were real for a few minutes.
Someone needs to legislate this out of existence because we're fucked if society ends up at the hands of nutjobs like them.
and zero accountability?
Sounds like a plan!
As someone who knows a little bit about multi-criteria decision making, risk analysis, probability theory and their friends (plausibility, possibility, fuzzy logics, etc.), I submit that these kinds of software programs are all just hocus-pocus and based on bullshitting customers.
How can I claim that without having seen the software? Simpe answer: The number of terrorist incidents is too low to establish significent correlations. The software is probably better at recognizing Pakistani cooks than at recognizing your next Breivik.
Additional information could include a combination of factors, like whether the passenger paid for their ticket in cash, or if they have ever been on a watch list
Great idea, that way anybody that has ever been put on a watch list can be harassed for ever! Not because a court of law determined they did anything wrong, no, but because they're on a list (or have been on one). You see, they probably did something wrong or else they wouldn't have been on that list in the first place...
Never mind the fact that this is all done in secret, with no judicial oversight, no accountability and no way to appeal those decisions and that people basically end up on those lists for exercising their political rights.
Try working as a journalist/filmmaker and reporting on the global war on terror, try actively opposing the US drone war or try supporting wikileaks (or any organization that the US has secretly decided they do not like) and see how quickly you end up on those watch lists.
Of course, you'll never know you're on one of those lists until the next time you try flying to the US, then you'll be detained and questioned (not to mention laptop seizure etc.). It happened many times to Jacob Appelbaum, a Tor developer, it happened to Imran Khan, one of the most popular politician in Pakistan and it happened repeatedly to Laura Poitras, an Oscar-and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. These people are spied on and harassed because of their political opinions, thanks to the global surveillance state we now live in.
How submissive have we become that as people living in democracies we even accept the existence of "watchlists"?
1 - Why don't you go back to the time when you spent a minimal amount of money on scanning passengers looking for a needle in a haystack, and instead concentrated on intelligence and infiltration of terrorist groups so that you can concentrate your resources?
2 - Why don't you realise that 'terrorists' (and there seem to be very few of them nowadays) aren't doing it because 'they hate our freedom' but because they're pissed off with some foreign activity we've undertaken? Rethinking some of the mad and pointless wars we've been starting would cut back on the terrorist threat AND improve the government's popularity with the 75% of the voters who aren't part of the military/arms production complex...
I think you're misunderstanding the problem.
A loan company might have two rates, one for higher risk people and one for lower rate people.
If 90% of black people are high risk for repaying a loan but 10% of white people are high risk for repaying a loan then it's simple for the loan company to charge black people the higher rate and white people the lower rate and their error rate will be relatively small.
But this is racial discrimination - the 10% of low risk black people are being discriminated against based on their colour and the 10% of high risk white people are being positively discriminated for as well.
Instead, the company needs to find tests that discriminate based on the risk of the person. If as a result, 10% of black people get the good rate and 10% of the white people don't then that isn't discrimination. All the tests will merely be proxies for what might happen but colour isn't allowed to be used as a proxy.
We've had a similar issue in the UK recently with insurance premiums. Motor insurance has been very heavily weighted for young drivers based on their sex - women get much lower rates.
Now, if young women tend to drive different cars to young men then the weighting the insurance company is likely to use based on type of car might, effectively, be a proxy for sex *but* a young man with an identical driving record to a young woman should be able to get the same premium for the same car.
In the UK you aren't *allowed* to *discriminate* based on colour or sex. For some things it's possible for people to "cheat" - if I only have one job then it's possible for me to discriminate but claim it's based on objective factors but when thousands of identical items are being sold, whether that is mortgages or insurance, it's pretty obvious if the discrimination is being done based on race or sex.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
If not, it's an arbitrary decision. And it leaves their government opened to be sued.
Don't stop where the ink does.
We shouldn't fear every time some new technology is employed to fight evil. Don't just have a knee jerk reaction to this. I know people who have worked on this project and I trust them and their work.
I know governments that have worked on much more serious projects and I don't trust them or their work.
Fight evil? Don't make me laugh. Keep contractors in jobs and bureaucrats in bribes more like.
Now we all know it picks on Arabs who pay cash all the bad guys have to do is legally change their name from Mohammed to Hank, apply for a bank card, and order the standard in-flight meal.
Now we all know it picks on Arabs who pay cash all the bad guys have to do is legally change their name from Mohammed to Hank, apply for a bank card, and order the standard in-flight meal.
So you assume the bad guys have a first name of Mohammed? :)
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
You could have a different game at each gate. You could have the passengers vote, like Weakest Link.
At another a Sid James lookalike or a man with a cat on his head set people tasks - and let's face it there's time, with the queues and all. The three worst performers insult each other and one gets sent to Gitmo.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."