Behavioural Analysis Conference 2024 / Day 3
Dick Noordhuizen
International Aviation Security instructor / Multilingual Communications Expert (e.g. Arabic, Farsi, Chinese and... Dutch)
Behavioural Analysis Conference 2024 at Brentford Football Stadium, England / My summary of Day Three
Wrapping up my summary for those who couldn’t attend this year’s BA in the UK, here, again, are my favourites for the last day of the conference. There were many more interesting talks and discussions these three days, so please don’t be upset when you miss some names; below is a list of presentations or subjects of particular interest to me. That’s just me. You can consult the complete list of this year’s conference, as well as foregone years, on www.behaviouralanalysis.com
The first three presentations of the morning centred around the application (or not) of Artificial Intelligence. These lectures were technical and quite challenging for a simple language guy like me.?
Kee Ein Cern , Head of profiling for the Home Team Science & Technology Agency in Singapore, shared his development of ABCS, where AI-enabled sensors automatically detect tell-tale indicators of deception. Working within the government, Kee could use video analysis of travellers based on ground truth. This means that the information has been verified to be correct. He used records of known smugglers at the Singapore-Malaysia border checkpoint to record the behaviour patterns of these known (because caught) smugglers. They aim to have an analysis within 5 to 7 seconds and later, in a walk-through of maybe 3 seconds, for a ‘profile’ of the traveller.
Australian Antoni (Tony) Werts of RMB Psychology took us deeper into ‘Minority Report’ territory. Tony’s work is all about deception and applying artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance behavioural analysis. Deception masks hostile intent, particularly in high-stakes environments. What happens to a deceptive person when they have arrived at the head of the queue?
Emma Bradford from lead sponsor Frazer-Nash Consultancy voiced and discussed the elephant in the room: ‘Just because we could use it (that is AI) doesn’t mean we should.’ AI has many inherent risks: privacy invasion, bias amplification, erosion of civil liberties, reinforcement of existing social biases, and security vulnerability. These were all hugely interesting lectures.
Between these presentations, Moderator Rod C. , who stepped in for a sadly absent Diana Nowek , remarked, “This scares the X%#@ out of me,” followed by “This really scares the &%$# out of me.” Rod was a delight on stage, citing many personal anecdotes at the right time to energise the audience.
As Aynabat Atayeva did in Prague in 2023, Maciej Dachowski updated us on developments at UNOCT, the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre. This United Nations office was founded in 2017 and is located in Doha, Qatar. Maciej shared the first results of the survey on the standardisation of behavioural analysis for Counter-Terrorism and preventing Violent Extremism (CT/PVE). UNOCT is part of the so-called UN 2.0, and its work revolves around three pillars: capacity building, research, best practices, and partnership and communication. In the upcoming Doha principles on BA, UNOCT and the UN call for standardising terminology, incorporating a human rights approach, and establishing an ethical framework for the use of behavioural analysis.
Dr. Alex Sutherland and Eleanor Prince continued the conference with a fast-paced double act full of exciting stuff—or, as the Germans say, a ‘Fundgrube’. My analogue notepad was full of scribbled book titles, articles to read, websites with frameworks to check out, and people to follow (not stalk). Alex and Eleanor are both from the Metropolitan Police Service, UK, and their talk was titled “Behavioural science in action: applications in and out of policing.”
They stated that changing human behaviour is everyday business, defining behaviour as an observable action. The COM-B model helps ponder these themes. The model stands for Capability + Motivation + Opportunity and Barriers to the COMs. See https://www.bitbarriertool.com
When trying to change behaviours, this sometimes leads to unintended consequences, which can be analysed with the INCASE framework: Intended behaviour, Non-target audiences, Compensatory behaviour, Additional behaviour, Signalling, and Emotional impact.
Eleanor showed many lovely examples of PR and marketing campaigns with, let’s say, a surprising downsize. I was once again (out loud) thinking to my table colleagues: “A solution to a problem is usually a new problem.”
Dr. Craig Donald took the floor to inform us about detecting crime syndicate behaviours. Craig’s lecture was excellent and eye-opening, including the minutes-long CCTV images of a criminal group that specialised in jewellery theft with an astonishing number of gang members at work at the crime scene.
领英推荐
Some roles and people sometimes involved in a theft (from the outside to the place of action) are the stopper group, inside information provider, inside facilitator, driver, suppressor, gatekeeper, lockout, blocker, and the actual thief. What is a crime syndicate? It is a group of people (two or more) focussed on a specialised crime area with defined roles and responsibilities. They are good at their jobs because of the specialisation and the repeated, systematic theft.
The last lecture I attended was by Oliver Kastens from Germany. Oliver is an expert in crowd safety and behaviour influence analysis. In his CAB Analysis Tool (Crowd Area and Behaviour Influence), there are three levels to consider: Area (static or dynamic), Behaviour (passive or active), and Social (physics of psychological). Events are often very dynamic, and these levels are also dynamic and can change from one moment to another.?
The conference concluded with an extensive round-table exercise by multi-talented and timeline enthusiast Prof. Dr David Keatley from Australia. The exercise involved several scenarios of possible attacks on airports, city centres, public venues, and the like. The goal was to convert all the conference theory we absorbed into operational best practices. Unfortunately, I could not stick around for this last gem of this year’s Behavioural Analysis. I promise to stay until the lights go off at next year’s Behavioural Analysis.
Thank you to this year’s moderators: Catherine Piana , Aaron Le Boutillier MSc and Rod C. .
Finally, thank you so much, Philip Baum and team members Terry Upsall and Flo Finch, again for your energy and passion in organising this great event — an exceptional thanks to the omnipresent Gurbir Chahal .
Signing off for now, I’m back to the old Roman city of Trajectum in the Netherlands to prepare for some training classes…
Cheers!
PS. The same fantastic team organises Dispax World (this year in Bangkok, Thailand), the 5th International Conference on unruly airline passenger management & restraint. Conference dates: November 20 to 21, 2024. See www.dispax.world
PS. I wrote similar blog posts at 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 ?
CEO at Super Recognisers International + Managing Director NFR Ltd
5 个月Surely a slot for human super recognisers who can further enhance security?
Long-time security affairs writer, communications trainer and special advisor.
5 个月There was me looking forward to a geek day spa for three days! Instead, I was a late ring-in as moderator. Nevertheless, I got so much out of the event, and I met so many wonderful, smart, and thoughtful people. As for my comment about AI, I copied/pasted Dick Noordhuizen's translation into a headline for my article: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-behavioural-analysis-ai-scares-x-out-me-rod-cowan-8bm8e
MD, Green Light Ltd. & Visiting Prof. Aviation Security, Coventry University
5 个月Thank you Dick Noordhuizen for taking the time and putting in the effort to craft these summaries. It’s very much appreciated and provides the energy boost to the Green Light Ltd. team to get cracking on planning Behavioural Analysis 2025!
Director at Leaderware
5 个月With the comments of the three days, you have given an excellent overview that gives you a space of your own at the conference. I enjoyed reading all three articles that bought back the various speaker contributions back into focus. Useful for both those who attended and those who can catch up to see why they should attend in the future. Thank you Dick Noordhuizen for your contributions and for your kind comments.
Forensic behavioural expert (verbal & nonverbal) | investigative interviewer | business consultant and board advisor | speaker | TEDX speaker |
5 个月Amazing blogs Dick, i really enjoyed them. Thank tou for all the work you put into them ????