As the volumes of pathways increase, it becomes impractical to inspect every consignment. In high-volume pathways like passengers and mail, it is essential to allocate limited inspection resources strategically to maximise their value. By targeting the highest-risk passengers or items, we not only increase the interception of biosecurity risk material for a given available budget, but also promote compliance and raise awareness. However, it is crucial to ensure that this profiling process is fair, unbiased, and defensible.
Challenges arise when inspection effort data is missing, as is the case for airline passengers passing through Australian airports. Relying solely on non-compliant finds for profiling in these instances would introduce biases into the resulting profiles, based on who is selected for inspection.