Airlines test out 'clean' lists

Airlines are devising a new way of classifying their passengers, and it has nothing to do with first class or cattle class.

In tomorrow's security-conscious world, you will either volunteer personal information in advance to the airline you want to fly on - and get onto a "clean" list once your details are verified - or submit to lengthy questioning each time you board a plane.

US and British airlines are pioneering schemes - introduced since Sept. 11 - that allow their regular fliers who are on the computer to go straight through security with just a glance at an iris-identification machine.

Everyone else, increasingly is likely to have to go through the sort of "profiling" procedure that spotted alleged terrorist Richard Reid as a possible security threat before French police allowed him onto the flight from Paris to Miami. He is said to have tried to blow up that flight with a bomb in his shoe.

Racial profiling is outlawed in many US states. An Arab American member of President Bush's Secret Service detail is suing American Airlines for refusing him permission to fly with his handgun on Christmas Day, alleging that it was his ethnic origin that set off alarm bells.

But the FAA makes security profiling obligatory for all US international carriers.

The biggest firm in the profiling business is International Consultants for Targeted Security (ICTS), an Israeli company based in Holland whose employees at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris found Mr. Reid so suspicious as he sought to board a Dec. 21 American Airlines flight that they turned him over to the French police. The police did not find Reid's name on a list of suspects, and his papers were in order, so they allowed him to fly the next day.

ICTS has contracts with more than 100 airlines worldwide, including many of the big US and European carriers, and employs 5,000 people at 50 airports in 12 European countries, according to Zamir Eldar, head of European operations for ICTS.

The company will not disclose the details of its profiling procedure, but the goal is "to profile each passenger, to determine whether he is a business or tourist passenger, or a potential terrorist," says Mr. Eldar.

Before check-in, each passenger on an airline that has contracted ICTS' profiling services is questioned in detail about his or her travel plans. ICTS employees are trained to look especially for passengers who bought their tickets with cash, or recently, who have one-way tickets, or who arrive late for a flight.

Their suspicions are also aroused by passengers who have no luggage to check, or whose baggage does not seem to "fit" - for example a young man who might be expected to carry a backpack, but who is instead carrying an expensive suitcase.

"A lot of it is in the nose," says John Beam, a former head of security for TWA who is now an independent air-safety consultant.

Page: 1 | 2