For many people, working in the aviation industry means working in a secure area (‘airside’ in industry jargon). In order to work in such areas, employees are required by the government etc. to provide a certificate of a criminal record check (Verklaring van Geen Bezwaar, vgb), which is issued by the General Information and Security Service (AIVD).
AIVD performs security checks at three levels. For civil aviation, employees must pass a Level B security check. One of the procedural requirements for obtaining a certificate of a criminal record check at this level is that the individual in question must be traceable for at least eight years, which means that they need to have lived for eight years at a permanent address in the Netherlands or another country with a similar security level (this generally means other NATO Member States). In addition, employees must be able to submit a comprehensive statement of all the addresses they have ever resided at in the past. This means the entire period from birth to the date of settling in the Netherlands. While other sectors seek to recruit foreign workers in times when labour is scarce, this is usually not possible when it comes to working in a secure area of an airport. Naturally, this severely restricts the potential employee base.
Over the past 10 years, around. 80% of the security checks performed by AIVD (within a 6% band) relate to civil aviation. Their number peaked in 2002 as a result of additional security personnel having been taken on in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, and it hit the trough in 2009, following job losses due to the introduction of the air travel tax.
In 2012, AIVD performed a total of 32,681 security checks for civil aviation. These checks cover approx. 50.5% of the people employed at Dutch airports of national importance, mainly ground staff and some members of the flight crew (cockpit crew).
If the individual in question fails to produce a certificate of a criminal record check (vgb), they will no longer be able to work in a secure area (on the airside). Depending on the situation, they may even lose their job.