Airports under pressure to introduce ‘naked’ scanners
30.12.09
The ease with which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to smuggle an incendiary device through security checks in two separate countries has increased pressure on airport operators to introduce scanners to detect what lies under a person's clothing, the Independent reports. Dutch airport authorities have called on the EU to make passenger scanners mandatory, arguing that they might have stopped a man who tried to blow up a US airliner.
The state of the art ‘millimetre wave’ scanners and ‘backscatter x-ray’ machines use extremely high frequency radio waves or electromagnetic radiation to see through layers of clothing, and can help spot items which ordinary metal detectors might miss. But governments have been reluctant to adopt the machines because they are 10 times more expensive than metal detectors and raise privacy issues. They are currently being trialled at Manchester Airport – with public outrage and a ban on their use for under 16 year olds the immediate responses to the trail announcement.
At Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, where Abdulmutallab changed from his Lagos flight to one destined for Detroit, seventeen of the 15-millimetre wave scanners are already in operation. But they can only be used by people who volunteer to be searched, because the images they produce show the person naked.
Security heads know that any attempt to make the use of such scanners compulsory would upset many travellers. Germany balked at introducing the scanners last year after a public backlash. However, Schiphol has started to use software - rather than people - to scan the image, an airport spokeswoman said, ‘so we think the privacy issue is solved’.
The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, has suggested that Britain should be prepared to place the scanners at all of its airports. But after a four-year trial of the machines at Heathrow between April 2004 and July 2008, the airport decided not to install the machines. A spokesperson declined to elaborate on the reasons behind this decision when questioned by the Independent, but it is thought that Heathrow favours using machines that can detect traces of explosive chemicals rather than penetrate clothing.
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