To wonder just how random airport security checks are?

[DifficultSituation19]

Because I seem to get pulled out to be thoroughly searched EVERY BLOODY TIME! You know, get all my belongings out so they can go through things thoroughly and swab them etc. I’ve flown around 10 times in the last 18 months and it literally always happens, whether I’m in England or abroad, whether I’m alone, with my DP, or the DC. Makes no difference. Always get searched while everyone else breezes through.

This has given me a bit of a complex. I don’t THINK I look like a DF (dodgy fucker). I mean, I’m not obviously oozing money or class but I’m generally quite presentable - white (shouldn’t matter but I’ve heard there is ‘racial profiling’), polite, middle class, pushing 40 mother of 2. WHY ME? My boyfriend thinks it’s hilarious. Surely every time can’t be ‘random’?

A lot of the profiling is racially based. Post 9/11 Asians are 40 times more likely to be stopped and a Black person 12 times more likely than a White person. Stats may be slightly out off date but there have been many studies showing this. After one of our family holidays were were stopped and questioned under Schedule 7, it was a very frightening experience for the children. We have been lucky though, I know some families who get questioned every time and it's a running joke now

Over 28 years ago my friend travelling back from an African country was stripped search naked told to bend down cough.
She has never recovered and still talks about it .overweight,wears glasses,pleasant looking.Black.she was in that room for ages.
When we took the family back in the days to the US apart fro the security staff being hateful.We were questions made to feel like shite.
My daughter who has a different surname was taken to the side and questioned if there was ever a time when she felt she wasn’t part of the family it was then, she’s 26 and still mentions it.
When we arrived we looked in the luggage camera destroyed ,films destroyed ,shaver destroyed .luggage a mess with a note saying it had been checked and it was a right they had.
A right to destroy property.
Never been back it was hateful and don’t miss it one bit.

I always get "randomly" searched but I must fit the control profile - white woman. I usually flight from a holiday airport so I think I get picked because I'm traveling with my OH or on my own - I'm easier than picking someone from a hen do.

An ex-colleague of mine who was Asian had some absolute horror stories.

I have one backpack which has never been through an airport without being swapped. Flew 10 times a year for the past 4 years. It feels too frequent and specific to be random but I can't figure out how it could be anything other than a coincidence. It's a very generic North Face bag everyone has.

Last time I was hand stabbed and and nothing else Why pull people over hist for that.

I'm a vaguely tidy and respectful 43 year old. I dont drink or smoke let alone indulge in drugs and explosives!

To be fair I know of more drug users who are white middle class women on their 40s than any other demographic!

I usually get checked too though and I'm working class in my 20s.

Happens to me too and is very annoying as a single parent who is having to carry all of the bags and ensure small child doesn't run off whilst I'm being scanned/belt/shoes off which then need putting back on etc. Chucking our bottled water away just seems cruel but one rule for all makes sense.

Actually have a box full of a selection of gin (tiny bottles) I want to take to a friend but unsure how to pack them as we have no bags in the hold. It's probably easier to post them? I can imagine them being chucked on to all of the brand new bottles of sun cream they seem to enjoy confiscating

An ex-colleague of mine who was Asian had some absolute horror stories.

Flying to Australia recently after watching too much Border Control I was paranoid and convinced we'd have our luggage searched but our son said it's quite often Asian people who are pulled aside and searched. After declaring items on our immigration card we stood in a short queue which had a few people of Asian origin and they all had their bags searched. We sailed through once the sniffer dog was done.

On the way home we had cleared security and we witnessed a security man chasing a young Asian girl with a backpack pulling her back to have her bag searched when she had already been through security.

I've only ever been taken to a room to be frisked in the Emirates.

Profiling is behaviorally based. So if you have begun to dread going through airport security, that is likely to show through nervous or flustered behaviour, however subtle. You are being observed from the second you enter an airport, so anyone changing their behavioral cues as they approach security is suspicious too. These would get you pulled aside for additional checks, and it becomes somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. In terms of having a quota of BME/non-BME to search, that’s absolutely false and if security is being done anywhere on such a basis, it’s risking lives.

Found this thread interesting ad I am always stopped. As is my older sister. We have come to the conclusion airport security are suspicious of small women.During bag searches I’ve asked what they are looking for and I was told explosives.

@Jetstream This is true, especially younger women who seem as though they might be vulnerable to suggestions of a man asking them to take something in their bag, because “they love them.” Youth is also seen to be akin to more liberal, human rights based political leanings. To many, vulnerable or suggestible is akin to small. This is a common reason people, including myself, get stopped at Ben Gurion in Israel.

I think it is “reverse profiling”. So that they aren’t accused of racism they have to prove that they pick a number of white, middle aged, people.

The last three times I’ve flown (ie every time I’ve flown in the last 15 years!) I’ve had my belongings searched and twice I had the full body scan. On one occasion I was travelling with my brother and he was ignored!

9 times out of 10 our car gets pulled over for the extra checks when travelling through the channel tunnel (which we do several times a year) as well.

I do too but not my ginger white husband ,just me olive skinned dark hair exotic first name...i know why it is!

Last few times I've flown I have been taken to one side to be searched too. White, short, blonde, forty something Mum. My husband and daughter joke about it now.
I am quite a nervous flyer so maybe I look a bit shifty..

My 5 year old has been searched every time at Heathrow and I always get swabbed when I’m with her...No idea why!

I always set the alert off going through the scanner I think it’s the (nit small) underwire in my bra. I’m not going without though!!

Once coming back from spending Christmas in Cologne I got taken to
One side so they could check my hand luggage. Apparently several strings of Christmas lights looks dodgy in their scanner 🤣🤣🤣but one they realised that’s all they were I think it was more pity than concern I saw in their eyes!!

How awful Palaver and your poor friend

I get stopped about 9 times out of 10 - have started to take off all jewellery and shoes without being asked but still get stopped. I guess I either look shifty or its the wire in my bra.

A few weeks ago my bag was searched and a few toiletries were swabbed but it was very quiet (6am) and they were really nice.

When you enter the airport the cameras do a risk assessment of passengers. Facial recognition technology makes certain ethnicities 'higher risk'. Security will be on the lookout for suspicious looking behaviour and will also flag up certain profiles. This is even before you get to the security queue. There is very little randomness about it.

When we picked up luggage in Australia, one of the bags was buzzing. Finally found the culprit when we unpacked with son in the background saying please do not traumatise me for life by whatever is buzzing in that bag. It was a toothbrush .

I get stopped to stand on the machine every time. When DD was 6, they did a random swab on her shoes and the bloke came back looking a bit perplexed and told us it had registered as explosives

He swabbed again and then sent us on our way. DD has never quite recovered!

I used to ask them why a scanner went off or why I was frisked. Once a lady told me that a lot of shoes have metal in the sole, you don't see it but it sets off the scanner. Also, if you get a bit anxious (because you were searched last time) you also look dodgy.

Nowadays I get frisked every time. I wear an insulin pump and wearing electronics on your body and refusing to take them off makes them check you. I'm always nervous about Dubai, they only feel my bra and wave me through, it just doesn't feel like it can be safe if they don't check properly.

I'm always pulled aside - and it's generally such an unpleasant manner in which they deal with you as well that it's made me much more anxious and avoid flying whenever at all possible as a result.

DD2 (5) got pulled over for a pat-down flying on an internal flight to grandparents last time and she thought it was bloody hilarious as she's so ticklish.

Washing your hands with soap, hand sanitiser etc an cause a false positive. Glycerine is the trigger.

I feel your pain! I’d just had a huge injury but had been cleared to fly. Full bloody body frisk at the airport, legs akimbo, could barely keep my balance. Then again, flying home a few months ago, full body scan, hands in the air. I’m a middle aged white woman and it was a domestic flight. Dunno what they thought I was going to do!

When I came back from Honeymoon I was wearing the sarong I had pretty much lived in for the past week or so. Was pulled in for questioning. When we explained we had been to the Maldives they let us go through.

Who is 'they'? That's clearly not airport security, which is the subject of the discussion.