Use of Passenger Profiling To Enhance Aviation Security in Kenya

The international aviation industry including Kenya has invested so much in the security sector to ensure more safety. Security techniques employed by most aviation industry players in Kenya at the various airports and in aircrafts involve many methods like screening processes where passengers walk through metal detectors. These methods have succeeded on many occasions but they appear to be facing challenges since the means through which threats to the aviation industry present themselves have seriously expanded and the methods of enactment have since become quite elaborate and really sophisticated. Aviation industry continues to spend huge amounts of money on security measures and there is need to get value for the investments. While for many years the aviation industry has been successful in meeting security challenges, the incident of September 11 2001 (9/11), proved otherwise. Kenya is currently under endless threats of terror attacks from the Al Shabaab terror group and this includes attacks against the aviation industry. Kenya has had several cases of passengers who departed from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport being arrested for drug trafficking in other countries. There has also been an increase in human trafficking through Kenya. In order to tackle the new kinds of covert and quite deadly security challenges, ICAO together with other national regulatory authorities and operators have investigated and ensured implementation of new and intense measures of security. The intent of this thesis was to investigate passenger profiling in Kenya as one of the recently emerging avenues of the increased aviation security. Profiling of passengers is a growing technique within the global aviation industry, especially in the developed countries, it has been seen to diminish risk of the threats to aircrafts. The aim of this thesis was to carry out an investigation on need for passenger profiling as an additional approach to aviation security and safety management then to assess whether or not Kenya needs to introduce it into its laws. The data was collected through extensive literature review on existing profiling programs used globally. The data was then analyzed using a thematic approach.