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Body-Imaging Scanner Enters Airport Testing

Possible metal-detector replacement has privacy advocates wary

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 11, 2007 2:45 PM CDT
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(Newser) – The federal government today begins testing a device that could replace metal detectors and pat-downs at airports around the country, the AP reports. The scanners produce full-body images of passengers, sans clothing. Privacy advocates are feeling sheepish. “These are virtual strip searches,” one said. “If Playboy published them, there would be politicians out there saying they're pornographic.”

The machines beam electromagnetic waves at passengers and measure the energy that bounces back, rather than traditional radiation techniques. The Transportation Security Administration says it has privacy measures in place: Images appear in a separate room, with passengers’ faces blurred out, and will not be saved. The scanners are being tested in Phoenix, and are in use at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport.

Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam already uses the controversial scanning machines. Despite the facial blurring technology, many feel the machines violate the privacy of passengers by creating something similar to nude images.
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam already uses the controversial scanning machines. Despite the facial blurring technology, many feel the machines violate the privacy of passengers by creating something similar...   (Wikimedia Commons)
Conventional airport metal detectors and pat-down techniques, might soon be replaced by high-tech body scanners that uses millimeter waves or low-levels of radiation do detect all the objects on a passenger's body.
Conventional airport metal detectors and "pat-down" techniques, might soon be replaced by high-tech body scanners that uses millimeter waves or low-levels of radiation do detect all the objects on a passenger's...   (Shutterstock.com)
Although airport officials believe the machines will be effective alternatives to metal detectors and pat downs, privacy advocates argue that the body scanners are essentially a digital strip-search. If you want to see a naked body, this is a naked body, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties...
Although airport officials believe the machines will be effective alternatives to metal detectors and pat downs, privacy advocates argue that the body scanners are essentially a digital strip-search....   (Shutterstock.com)
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privacy • homeland security • airport security • airport scanners • pat-downs

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