With two weeks to go, Behaviour Detection 101, the pre-conference practitioner workshop organised by CoESS and ASSA-i on 15 September in Kraków, is approaching the number of participants we had hoped for – enough to bring together diverse perspectives while keeping the group genuinely interactive.

The interest reflects a question increasingly relevant across security environments: what can other sectors learn from the operational experience of Behaviour Detection in aviation – and what needs to be adapted?

Ports, public transport, energy facilities, healthcare, shopping environments and other critical infrastructure face threats ranging from terrorism and organised crime to sabotage. Insider involvement, coercion, manipulation or hostile reconnaissance can be pathways through which these threats are prepared or carried out.

Technology increasingly helps us identify anomalies and detect threats. But security remains fundamentally human-centred. A trained professional may notice that something does not quite fit, interact with someone and ask the next question.

Sometimes this starts with intuition – a hunch. The professional challenge is to turn that hunch into something useful: What exactly did I observe? Why did it attract my attention? What else could explain it? What additional information do I need?

In other words: how do we turn human observation into actionable intelligence?

The afternoon will begin with a Behaviour Detection Masterclass led by Philip Baum, Chair of Behavioural Analysis 2026, before moving from foundations into operational reality with Maria Carmen Feijoo Fernández (Guardia Civil, Spain), Enno Geissler (ICTS), Johan Ohlsson-Malm (Chair of the CoESS Maritime / Port Security Committee) and An Gaiser (NL). We will explore training and supervision, lessons transferable from aviation to other environments, the pathway from observation to decision, and the relationship between human judgement and technology.
Finally, Behaviour Detection specialist and trainer Kim Covent (Police Ghent, Belgium) will lead an interactive scenario requiring participants to work with incomplete information, observe, interpret and decide – while confronting their own assumptions and biases.

Our ambition is to answer some questions, but also to identify those that cannot be answered through a checklist or a workshop alone. Some professional judgement can only develop through training, feedback and operational experience.

And BD101 is only the beginning. At Behavioural Analysis 2026, CoESS Director General Catherine Piana will moderate three further discussions on Behaviour Detection in different settings; AI and technology; and Behaviour Detection involving people with invisible disabilities or mental health conditions.