29 December 2010 Last updated at 07:03 ET

Germany airport profiling call rejected by minister

Israel uses psychological profiling as part of its security checks

The incoming head of Germany's airport industry association has called for Israeli-style passenger profiling to be introduced.

Christoph Blume said that grouping passengers into different categories of risk could put an end to the ever-growing number of security checks.

Detection equipment would, he argued, "at some point... reach its technological and operating limits".

But the country's justice minister said there was a risk of stigmatisation.

Germany's largest police trade union was also sceptical, saying the policing of EU borders was very different to that of a small state like Israel.

The call by Mr Blume, who is chief executive of Duesseldorf airport, echoes a proposal outlined recently by Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the airline carrier association IATA.

"We must shift the screening focus from looking for bad objects to finding terrorists," Mr Bisignani said in November.

"To do this effectively, we need intelligence and technology at the checkpoint."

In November, Germany tightened its airport security in the light of what it described as "concrete indications" of terrorist attacks being planned.

In the past year, there has been a string of suspected attempts to bomb planes, including the Detroit plot in which a man was accused of trying to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his underwear. In October, two unexploded parcel bombs were found on cargo planes bound for the US.

'Resources wasted'

"Every new incident leads to further controls and security measures," Mr Blume told Germany's Rheinische Post newspaper.

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