with breaking down or checking, if tampering happened.

18:04 Oct 17, 2012 

Pour reprendre l'idée de Tony M., peut-être Fractionnement ?

14:40 Oct 16, 2012 

Yes, iI see what you mean, just thought that basically to make the checking process quicker, they advise to somehow 'breakdown the whole set', whether in sub-groups of individual pieces - that I don't know, to check whether some elements have been 'tampered', manipulated etc.. - but in that case have to say don't really know how best ot translate it here in this very specific context. At least hope my 'rephrasing ' the English structure a bit has helped!

14:40 Oct 16, 2012 

Yes, iI see what you mean, just thought that basically to make the checking process quicker, they advise to somehow 'breakdown the whole set', whether in sub-groups of individual pieces - that I don't know, to check whether some elements have been 'tampered', manipulated etc.. - but in that case have to say don't really know how best ot translate it here in this very specific context. At least hope my 'rephrasing ' the English structure a bit has helped!

14:26 Oct 16, 2012 

Yes, but 'to break down' can also be to break a group down into is individual component parts; there is nothing about 'break down' that suggests further grouping of any kind; this is not the same sort of context as if you had a large population of people that you intended to break down by (say) age, gender, nationality, etc.

14:14 Oct 16, 2012 

to break down, c'est répartir en sous groupe, c'est disons le sens premier

14:03 Oct 16, 2012 

décolisage or dépalettissage ??? dépalettisation ???

13:55 Oct 16, 2012 

Bonjour,
Merci pour vos explications. Il s'agit ici de fret. Comment traduiriez-vous donc ce "breaking down" ?

13:50 Oct 16, 2012 

I don't think the answerers so far are reading this the same way as I am, so here is my suggested interpretation (crystal ball in hand!)

You don't state if this is actually freight, or passenger baggage?

If the former, then I suspect it probably simply means 'breaking down' a large package into the component cartons (like when on a pallet) — wih a big stack of cartons, it is easy to hide something in the centre.

If the latter (or indeed, even in the case of freight), then it probably means 'dismantling' — at least a first level of dismantling / opening, to check there isn't a gun hidden inside your laptop, etc.