Airport security staff have no statutory right to search people without the subject’s consent in the way that police officers can under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act under proscribed circumstances, or in the way that customs officers can as allowed by Excise and other Acts.
As has been said it is a case of submit to a search or don’t travel; no different from entering a football ground or many political meetings where stewards or security officers are often on hand to carry out frisks of those entering.
If when passing through airport security you are selected for a body search you have the right to say ‘no’. That would certainly mean they would not let you pass any further and they may even decide your refusal is suspicious and alert the police.
I do wonder at the effectiveness of a physical frisk the way it is carried out at UK airports. In the US the police usually demand that suspects stand facing a wall with legs spread apart. Even that does not always lead to a one hundred per cent certain search. A full strip search is the only way to be virtually sure that someone has been thoroughly searched, and that can be unpleasant for both searched and searcher.
Clearly, that is not a realistic exercise at airports so we are left with a compromise – not a very effective compromise in my view.
I know many people find being searched by a stranger, especially in public view of numerous other strangers as happens at airports, humiliating and thoroughly unpleasant. That is why security staff have to be continually reminded of this, and their supervisors must ensure that the searchers always act with the utmost tact, discretion and sympathy.
Being boorish and running roughshod over customers at the altar of the god of security will not do. In fairness, my experience with UK airport security staff is that in the main they do act properly and sensibly. Unfortunately, the few that don’t always attract a disproportionate amount of attention and publicity.