Another box to tick.

The entry card that needs to be filled out prior to landing in most countries has the ubiquitous questions on plant and animal products being brought in along with other sundry questions alluding to your good standing within the community. Aside from the irritation of trying to fill this card in during the bumpy landing process, the majority of passengers don’t make too much of an issue with the paperwork. They may want to look a little closer now that customs is adding a box to indicate if you are bringing pornography into the country.

Of course we understand the rationale behind trying to capture the world’s child molesters but the question begs naivety along the same lines as other customs asking if you are a drug smuggler or Nazi? From what I have seen, no one from the world of “Underbelly” is likely to answer yes to any of those questions. How many drug smugglers have been caught without a beagle to help out?

This opens a whole raft of privacy issues which I’ll leave to the civil libertarians and the Sex Party (who votes for these guys at the elections?) to rally against.

So what to do with those risqué pictures you took of your honeymoon bride in the dental floss bikini? What to do with your Playboy that you only buy for the articles? How to manage the embarrassment in front of your kids, when customs rummage through your luggage and extract those toys and DVDs you normally keep locked in the garage? Will there be beagles specially trained to pick up Hefner like signals?

Will it be up to the customs officers to ascertain what is and isn’t considered porn? Who made them the censor?

Going through customs is already an arduous process brought on by the global fear of terrorism and people generally trying hard to fly under the radar, keep quiet and just get out of the airport with the Bali copies of the latest movie release or the items of copy clothing they said would be fine on the street in Bangkok. So adding another wrinkle won’t make it any easier on your already anxious state.

So will customs give us a list of what they consider porn?

I generally have great travel porn along with food porn and when that is combined in a luscious issue of the Gourmet Traveller, it can get the pulse racing. What about chocolate porn or the ever present motor mechanics racing porn? One man’s porn can be another’s poolside reading. So do we have something to worry about as we pass under the electronic gaze of the airport security cameras and will we be dinner stories for customs if we answer honestly about those photos on the Caribbean cruise that were only meant for our eyes?

The jury is out on the results to be tabulated, or not, over the next few months. Today Tonight will no doubt send their most trusted and credible journalist to report back.