Religious Sensitivities in Security Screening

It is impossible not to consider religious sensitivities when it comes to the application of behavioural analysis techniques. Profiling is, after all, often incorrectly deemed to be a form of racial discrimination. Yet most proponents of profiling, or other behavioural analysis techniques, would actually argue that decisions should not be made on the basis of an individual's race, religion, ethnic origin, gender or sexual orientation. Indeed, stereotyping the threat can actually result in poor decision-making. Regardless of this, it is vital that the security services take into consideration religious sensitivities and it is with this in mind that delegates to Behavioural Analysis 2018 will benefit from an engaging panel in which representatives of Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faith groups will join our conference chairman in a discussion about the challenges their communities face, both in terms of stereotyping and subsequent screening processes. Panel members include:

Dr. Usama Hasan, Quilliam Foundation (representing the Muslim community) Gurmel Singh, Sikh Council UK (representing the Sikh community) Michael Whine MBE, Community Security Trust (representing the Jewish comunity) Additionally Dr. Hasan will be presenting a separate paper entitled 'Insider Threat Response: identifying radicalisation in the workplace' in which he will identify how can organisations best identify the employee who poses a threat – particularly those who may been radicalised - and how, having done so, that threat can best be managed.

Michael Whine MBE will also be one of the event's opening speakers covering 'Places of Worship: communities protecting themselves'. Behavioural Analysis 2018 will also include an academic presentation on 'Understanding Intuitive Bias' delivered by Wim De Neys, of France's CNRS & Université Paris Descartes. Consider, for example, the stereotypical image of a Colombian man or, perhaps, a Thai woman. The phrases conjure up intuitive stereotypical images, often negative in nature and unfairly so. Humour is also based on such stereotypes, hence concepts such as the Irish joke or Jewish joke. The terrorist threat is often perceived to be exclusively Islamic in nature, regardless of the statistics. Wim De Neys will explain how such intuitive judgements affect and bias our decisions.