“When you get down to it, you’re literally in a tent by the side of the road, naked, in front of a stranger, squatting.”

That’s how 21-year-old Kate* and 20-year-old Anna* describe their experience on the way to Strawberry Fields festival in Victoria last month.

Probably not the ideal way to kick off a Spring weekend.

Kate and Anna were on the road before they came across a massive police drug operation around a bend. There was around 30 police officers, a drug testing van, dogs everywhere - the lot.

As the driver, Kate was swabbed for a drug test. Police found small traces of amphetamines in her system - but not enough for a driving infringement.

"We were told to get out of the car, and then we were just questioned really vigorously," Kate told Hack.

Then, a sniffer dog then sat down next to them.

“And the dogs sat down and the police started questioning us because they thought we had drugs on us.”

Kate and Anna didn’t expect that moment to escalate, but they say they felt intimidated by the officers straight away.

You feel intimidated to the point where you don’t want to question their authority.

“We weren’t really sure what was going to happen when we went to the tent. But she [the police officer] said, I’m going to have to strip search you and make sure you don’t have any drugs on you, because the dog has given us a reason to believe that you might have drugs on you.”

“I honestly didn’t see it coming at all.”

A female police officer then told Kate and Anna to take off all their clothes for a strip search.

It’s incredibly violating and dehumanising in a way, just because this dog sits at your feet, suddenly all your rights are gone and you have to get naked in front of a stranger.

Police officers started searching their clothes once they were taken off, Kate and Anna say. Socks, underwear - everything.

“And then they made us squat, in case we were hiding drugs inside of ourselves.”

Anna and Kate say that squatting while naked—in front of a complete stranger, in a tent on the side of the road—wasn’t only the most demeaning part of the situation, it was probably the most illogical.

After all, keeping in mind that a police officer can’t touch your genitals during a strip search, would a baggie really just fall out? Even if you’re squatting?

Kate and Anna told Hack about the authorities' logic.

“She said if we were hiding anything inside of ourselves, inside our vagina - it would fall out. The vaginal muscles would relax and it would fall out. Which doesn’t really make sense.”

By that thinking, Kate says, “If you had a tampon inside you, that would fall out - so that’s completely illogical….it doesn’t make sense.”

“I was just fuming,” Kate says, “because I was like, we’re not hiding anything, and even if we were, you’re not going to find anything, this is stupid.”

Strip searches: what are your rights?

In Victoria, conducting a strip search is legal - if police have reasonable grounds to suspect that you’re in possession of an illicit substance.

But it’s currently unclear whether a sniffer dog’s detection—as was the case for Kate and Anna—is enough to warrant a full strip search.

Commonwealth Law also states that a superintendent (or an officer of a higher rank) has to approve a strip search.

Meghan Fitzgerald, principal solicitor at the Fitzroy Legal Service says it's a complex question as to whether it's legal to strip search someone based on a sniffer dog sitting down next to them.

"This is a classic example where a lack of regulation leads to power creep - so it's not legislated the particular circumstances where a strip search can take place."

So can you refuse to squat?

"You're obliged to comply with a lawful direction. Again, this area is actually quite amorphous," says Meghan Fitzgerald. "There's not a legal precedent of a high nature in Victoria and there's also not legislation. So there would be particular principles if there would be a test case which would be looked at - would be a person's right to privacy and dignity, whilst they're deprived of their liberty."

Sniffer dogs, what’s good?

Since Passive Alert Detection dogs (sniffer dogs) were introduced during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, their effectiveness—on events like music festivals—have often been brought into question.

In 2013, statistics highlighted that PAD dogs got it wrong the majority of the time.

In that year, 64% of searches identified by sniffer dogs found no evidence of drugs.

But the presence of sniffer dogs could change the habits of drug users for the worse. One study says 30% of people who saw a PAD dog immediately took all their drugs at once.

Festival profiling?

Kate and Anna say that while they didn’t have any drugs on them, they had two things going against them: they’re young, and they were going to a music festival.

But they don’t think that kind of profiling is just. “I think they just perceive evasiveness for guilt, and it makes you feel guilty even though you haven’t done anything wrong.”

They say their search happened “simply because you’re young and you bought tickets to a festival. How is that an indicator of guilt?”

*Names have been changed.