The people of 13 nations are no longer allowed to bring their cameras and laptops onboard flights to and from the United States.

In the request from US authorities, airlines are being told to prevent passengers from certain countries packing their valuable cameras, lenses, laptops and indeed anything larger than a smartphone into cabin baggage. Instead all this delicate and expensive equipment must be placed in the hold where it’s at risk of damage or of being lost altogether.

Airlines were given 96 hours to comply with the request and passengers from an un-released list of 13 countries are effected. It’s know that Saudi Arabia and Jordan are on the list, which is a significantly longer one than the number of countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban.

It’s not known how long the restrictions will be in place for, and the ban is effective from the 21st March.

In my opinion it’s a disgraceful policy.

We can only speculate on the reasoning behind it, but in my view it could be over the ease at which large lithium ion batteries can be damaged purposefully by would-be terrorists to potentially spark a large fire in the cabin, or enough smoke to be dangerous for those on board to inhale. By checking these large electronic items into the hold, the owner can no longer manipulate them.

Shame it is just another badly thought out and discriminatory move by the US administration in the name of ‘security’.

I would never put my camera equipment and lenses in the hold. Then again, I guess I was lucky to be born in the UK and white.