On Compulsory Security Screening in Australia

by Shaker Anonymous, a long time reader and some-time commenter on Shakesville and an avid traveler. She lives in Australia with her partner and infant son, and two cats who refer to the three of them as "staff".

[Content Note: Invasive security while traveling; sexual violence.]

For reasons of employment opportunity, I live in a different country than nearly my entire extended family. When my son gets sick, instead of asking my mother or another trusted relative if I should be worried, I call a nurse line. When my partner and I want to go out for a meal, we depend on the kindness of friends or paid babysitting. To see our families, and access (even for a short while) the kind of support it's nice to have when one has a new baby, we have to travel internationally: We have to fly. None of what I am about to tell you would be acceptable to me even if we were not in a position where we were under so much pressure to travel, but the fact that we are puts me in a position that feels almost untenable.

I am an avid traveler, and I have watched with dismay the roll-out of invasive security screening procedures. I have protested them in any way I can, spoken out about how they marginalise transgender passengers, ostomates, survivors of sexual assault, and other groups whose personal circumstances do not in any way need to be disclosed in order to fly. I have kept a close eye on the roll-out of the millimeter-wave and backscatter scanners, and decided two or three years ago not to travel to the United States because I did not want to go through one of them. I have a deep-seated fear or being seen, and of intimate images of my body stemming from a history of sexual assault. I am anonymous for this post because I am afraid—afraid that my ability to remain in Australia will be compromised if I speak publicly; afraid that I will be targeted by security personnel if they can identify me.

Recently, while my son and I were recovering from a bad cold, and I was desperately in need of some family time, we had a well-timed trip home booked. I looked forward to the trip with anticipation. While in the past I have had fairly aggressive pat-downs from airport security leaving Australia, they now use wands and, to the best of my knowledge, security screening in Australia was, while annoying, business as usual. Millimeter wave (MMW) scanners had been trialed, but that trial was optional. While travelling home at Christmas I had noticed the machines were in use again, but believed they were still optional, and families with small children were being directed through a standard metal detector anyway. My partner and I had been fortunate to be able to buy business class seats at a heavily discounted rate, and while we were not looking forward to the traveling portion of the trip, it did not seem to be anything to fear either. How wrong I was.

After arriving at the airport, checking in took an unusually long time; by the time we approached security screening, my son (being carried in an infant carrier my by partner) was starting to become fretful and I was already distressed. We approached the security lines, some of which had only metal detectors, and some of which had metal detectors and MMW scanners. Knowing I could not face a MMW scanner, when we were gestured to join a queue with one in operation we asked the security staff member whether they were still optional; he assured us they were. We had heard nothing in the media, and I had read nothing in any of the travel websites I follow, so we had no reason to disbelieve him.

When we got to the head of the queue, my partner (with the baby) was gestured through the metal detector, and I was gestured through the MMW. When I told the security officer I did not wish to go through the MMW, he told me I had to.

After some back-and-forth, during which the (also male) manager of the screening point was called over and I was forced to repeat my objections to the MMW machine and out myself as a survivor of sexual assault, I had broken down. I was crying, shaking, and hyperventilating.

The manager insisted that I had to go through the machine, and told me that nobody could see anything except a cartoon outline. He enlisted a female staff member to show me what would come up on the screen—which was still unacceptable to me, especially now that I was already in a state of panic after having been triggered.

My partner volunteered to take my place (which was denied). My crying caused a coughing fit because of my cold: A security screener from the next line turned around and told me to "calm myself down". The security manager became impatient and told me to hurry up and make my decision; I could enter the scanner or not fly that day.

Despite my convictions that the scanners are wrong, despite the situation being my own personal worst nightmare when travelling...I was desperate to see my family. I was desperate for a rest. I went through the scanner.

I cursed and swore (and told the staff member who told me I needed to stop swearing that I did not need to do any such fucking thing), and I went through the scanner.

It did not end there.

The technology is unreliable. It picked up "a threat" around my yoga-pant-clad knee. I was then subjected to having my leg touched by security staff, as well, who had to investigate the "threat" detected by the machine.

I cried all the way through the airport. At no point during this entire process did anyone other than my partner offer any kind of assistance.

In the lounge, the gate staff member asked what had happened since I was still visibly upset. When we told her, she asked for my name so she could investigate it (more on this in a moment). She told me she didn't like the scanners either, but that what I had experienced was a legitimate cost of being able to fly. She said that her partner was a federal police officer and that I should trust that no permanent images were made of me (which is not a thing anyone should trust), and that I didn't know what rape was like; her husband saw some truly awful things. While I recognise she was trying to help, I ended the conversation at this point because it was Not Helping.

It has been a couple of weeks since this experience, and writing about it is still not easy.

I have since looked up the Australian government regulations about the scanners, in which I found that, indeed, those with ostomies, transgender passengers, and those with external prostheses of any kind will have to explain their private medical history to security screeners who really ought not need to know it. I also discovered that no consideration has been made for survivors of sexual assault, despite this group being one of the groups that overseas trials have been seen to potentially retraumatise.

The Australian Government does promise that no detailed images are being made, and that no information is kept or stored with a name, but the fact that the lounge agent used my name to check up on what had happened to me suggests the rules are already being broken. Moreover the privacy impact statement claims that the introduction of these scanners was to be well-publicised; I am a member of a number of frequent flyer forums, and I am engaged with news media; I also read signs in the airport and at no point did I suspect I could be forced into one of these machines. If I am supposed to trust that the use of these machines is not nefarious, the Australian government is going about getting that trust all wrong.

And now, if I ever want to travel to my family again, I have to risk this all over again. Since there is no work for me in my country of origin; I'm somewhat short of options. The process of moving through the airport may now be triggering for me in its own right, thanks to the callousness shown me the last time I travelled, but, even if not, my choices boil down to traumatisation or ostracisation.

None of us should have to live in fear of travel, especially when travel is, for many people, a requirement of work or a necessity to access distant relations. This doesn't have to happen.