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Random checks 'as effective' as terrorist profiling

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The Straight Story Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-02-09 05:59 PM
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Random checks 'as effective' as terrorist profiling
Random checks 'as effective' as terrorist profiling

"Flying while Muslim" is the new "driving while black", according to air travellers who believe they are being targeted for extra security measures on the basis of racial and religious profiling.

Not only is profiling discriminatory, but it is also inefficient, according to a new analysis by William Press" of the University of Texas at Austin. His argument applies not only to crude racial profiling, but also to profiles that flag up risky individuals on the basis of how they bought their tickets, whether they have checked luggage, whether they have purchased one-way flights, and so on.

Press has modelled situations in which members of a profiled group are, for example, 100 times more likely to be a terrorist than a typical traveller. You might think that the best approach would be to make it 100 times more likely that these people are selected for extra security checks. But in fact, random screening turns out to be just as effective.

The problem is that too much time is spent repeatedly screening members of the profiled group who are not actually terrorists, Press explains. For the same reason, a strategy in which members of the profiled group are always pulled aside performs more poorly than random screening, diverting resources from members of the "low risk" majority who may still be terrorists.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16521-random-checks-as-effective-as-terrorist-profiling.html
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