Behavioural Analysis Conference 2024 / Day 2

Behavioural Analysis Conference 2024 at Brentford Football Stadium, England / My summary of Day Two

Continuing with my summary for those who couldn’t attend this year’s conference in the United Kingdom, here are some of my favourites for the second day. There were many more interesting talks and discussions. A list of all the lectures you can find on www.behaviouralanalysis.com

Right after our morning coffee, John Rose offered some counter perspectives for us in the (airport) security world to consider. John is the chief risk officer of the travel company ALTOUR and told us quite clearly: “I just want to go through the airport as fast as possible, and I don’t want to talk to anyone!”

His travelling customers have privacy concerns with these behavioural assessments, profiling, or security interviews. They are upset, suffer from stress and anxiety because of us, and generally dislike the lack of transparency offered by security staff. They fear all kinds of biases and resent being selected for additional checks when someone misinterprets their behaviour.

John’s well-articulated view from the other side of the fence stated that any interaction (especially the bad ones…) can have grave geopolitical consequences at borders, in resorts, and throughout the travel industry. He reminded us all that the international holiday and travel industry accounts for 11% of worldwide GDP and roughly the same percentage of employees working there.

Alexandra James , analysis output manager of Osprey Flight Solutions, gave a lecture demonstrating that behaviour detection (BD) works in practice. First, she reminded us that BD is only a recommended practice within AvSec.

For sifting out convincing case studies, Alexandra used Osprey's extensive open-source database, using specific keywords and noting the people who detected that something was off. Aircrew and passengers also made reports.

She warns of reduced opportunities for behaviour detection with the increase of automation in the industry. Also, internal reports on incidents require far more details than open-source/public reports for training, awareness raising, and safeguarding against bias.

A big part of today was Joe Navarro ’s special two-hour (!) masterclass, titled ’What every body is saying to Security Professionals’. It promised highlights of his former FBI years in speed-reading people to identify negative intent. Spoiler alert: it is all in the brain, and if you are in security management, you should look for world-class observers!

There are too many interesting insights, oneliners, and sidebars to go into here. And there is a whole booklist of titles I (and other members of the audience) really need to read first. Observing the behaviour of fellow primates is simply engrained in all of us. We basically look for two things: Is the human I encounter a threat to me, and what is the hierarchy between us?

My big takeaway is the concept of Pre- and Post-Security Behaviour. After security, for instance, in the boarding area, passengers displaying certain behaviours should even be more scrutinised. In all my years working in airport security, I have never explicitly thought about this. Thank you, Joe. Ok, one nice oneliner: “When lips disappear, trouble is near”. Already stacked next to my bed: my Joe Navarro book collection. It is high time to revisit all those pages!

The last session was on trafficking, stalking and threats by so-called fixated people, elegantly hosted by. Aaron Le Boutillier MSc , including lectures from Xavier L’Hoiry (on developing a sexual trafficking matrix to assist law enforcement combing through Adult Services websites) and Karen Fullerton-Chalmers (on how staking behaviour is represented in movies, tv-shows and the like).

Philip Grindell spoke on threats from so-called Fixated People. People with a fixation have an increased pathological preoccupation with either a person, an ideology, or a cause. This is often linked to stalker behaviour. Look for pre-attack warning signs like a pathway to aggression, novel aggression (never done anything violent before), energy bursts (a flurry of activity just before the action, leakage (they just want to tell someone…) and last resort warning behaviours. Amongst the examples Philip cited were Anders Breivik, the attack on British MPs and the Ronald Reagan shooting—extra interesting fact: Philip also hosts the Defuse podcast.

I will be back tomorrow when I post my picks for the final Day Three.

Post Scriptum: I wrote similar blog posts for last year’s 2023 Behavioural Analysis Conference in Prague. You can find them here on LinkedIn:

Prague 2023 Day 1: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/behavioural-analysis-conference-2023-day-1-dick-noordhuizen?

Prague 2023 Day 2: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/behavioural-analysis-conference-2023-day-2-dick-noordhuizen?

Prague 2023 Day 3: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/behavioural-analysis-conference-2023-day-3-dick-noordhuizen?