Automatic Profiling Is Useless
Automated passenger profiling is rubbish, the Home Office has conceded in an amusing—and we presume inadvertent—blurt. “Attempts at automated profiling have been used in trial operations [at UK ports of entry] and has proved [sic] that the systems and technology available are of limited use,” says home secretary Jacqui Smith in her response to Lord Carlile’s latest terror legislation review.
The U.S. wants to do it anyway:
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial or ethnic groups.
I’ve written about profiling before.
dragonfrog • July 7, 2008 2:07 PM
Seems reasonable – if you single out Arabs because they look Arabic, it’s racial harassment. But if you single them out because your software tells you to, you have applied a sufficient layer of magic that it’s no longer racism.
(even though your software simply does a check for Arabic background)