Tuesday Dec 13, 2005
Tuesday Dec 13, 2005
As I was going thru security at CDG Airport in Paris, I noticed that the viewing screen of the X-ray machine was easy to see. Curious as always about these things, I watched as my bag went through.
As it came through, it looked fine, but then suddenly, the dark image of an assault rifle lying amongst my belongings in my carry on baggage appeared. The security guard looked up at me and said something in French which I did not understand at all.
I was tired, having not slept on the long flight. Needless to say, I was a bit stunned to see the rifle in my bag.
Then I got it..... Security scanning humour. Sure. Must be. I said mine was smaller than that and smiled. The security guy hit another button and the image disappeared.
As passengers, it is a criminal offense to joke about carrying a bomb. Obviousy, there are no such rules for the security team.
File this one under weird experiences....
I don't know for sure, but I read Kim Vicente's "The Human Factor", and I think he mentions this as a training and quality assurance aid. If I remember correctly, the assumption is that the only way to test the effectiveness of the human screeners is to have the system superimpose a test image on the real image occasionally and see if the human screeners pick it up.
Apparently we don't do this in North America because there's legislation that mandates a screener must be fired if they don't have a 100% detection rate, so instead of detecting and improving the situation, we have to ignore it (check the Vicente book for sure- I don't happen to have it with me).
Posted by Greg Trasuk on December 13, 2005 at 05:27 PM EST #