reportfurther
17th Jan 2002, 02:49
Airlines are devising a new way of classifying their passengers - and it has nothing to do with first class or cattle class.
Instead, passengers will fall into two groups - regular fliers who volunteer personal information in advance to the airline for verification, and passengers who do not.
The latter group will have to undergo lengthy questioning each and every time they take a flight, whereas the first group (regular fliers) will go straight through security with just one glance at an iris-identification machine.
The biggest firm in the profiling business, International Consultants for Targeted Security (ICTS), already has contracts with more than 100 airlines Worldwide. ICTS' goal is to profile each passenger, to determine whether he is a business or tourist passenger, or a potential terrorist.
Before check-in, each passenger on an airline that has contracted ICTS' profiling services is questioned intrusively about his or her travel plans. Passengers are expected to give the names of people they have met and places they have visited during their travels, to explain exactly why they are flying, and to say where they have been staying.
ICTS employees are also trained to look especially for passengers who have bought their tickets with cash, who have one-way tickets, or who arrive late for a flight.
Instead, passengers will fall into two groups - regular fliers who volunteer personal information in advance to the airline for verification, and passengers who do not.
The latter group will have to undergo lengthy questioning each and every time they take a flight, whereas the first group (regular fliers) will go straight through security with just one glance at an iris-identification machine.
The biggest firm in the profiling business, International Consultants for Targeted Security (ICTS), already has contracts with more than 100 airlines Worldwide. ICTS' goal is to profile each passenger, to determine whether he is a business or tourist passenger, or a potential terrorist.
Before check-in, each passenger on an airline that has contracted ICTS' profiling services is questioned intrusively about his or her travel plans. Passengers are expected to give the names of people they have met and places they have visited during their travels, to explain exactly why they are flying, and to say where they have been staying.
ICTS employees are also trained to look especially for passengers who have bought their tickets with cash, who have one-way tickets, or who arrive late for a flight.