Naked Scanner Being Trialled In Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport has begun trials of a new technology which, it is hoped, will improve airport security, but many civil liberties groups are calling for it to be pulled due to some pretty major privacy concerns. Instead of emptying your pockets and taking off your belt before walking through normal metal detectors, and subsequently being searched by a security guard, these new 'full body scanners' are able to give an x-ray of your body shape to determine if you are concealing anything under your clothes. Would you want to walk through one of these? And would you allow your kids to do likewise?

October.15.2009 - George Valentine Corr, Blatant News Editor
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THE FULL BODY SCANNER TRIALS IN THE UK & US
Full body scanners have been developed for some time, with millions still being thrown yearly at this technology for decades, so it is no surprise to see them finally being trialled at a public European airport. Aswell as this UK trial, there are 23 airports in the United States - with 40 machines collectively - which are also running tests, and London's Heathrow Airport did trial similar machines from 2004 to 2008. At Manchester Airport and in the stateside airports the trial is purely voluntary and passengers can choose to use the conventional security checks (metal detector and search) if they prefer. The company which manufactured all of the US & UK machines is called RapiScan, and they are based both in the UK - where they were founded in 1972 - and in the US, with their current headquarters situated in California. They concentrate on airport security for the most part, with metal detectors high on their agenda, so if these trials go as planned they can expect to expand in a big way. They are a pioneer of the 'backscatter' scanners which are fuelling this new wave of technology, along with the 'millimeter wave' scanners which differ by not using any radioactive substances. We may come to expect this kind of 'naked' intrusion when boarding flights in the very near future, because the US has already taken delivery of more machines from the company, but they are refusing to be open about which airports they will be placed at.

THE EXPANSION ACROSS THE UNITED STATES
I was listening to Dublin's NewsTalk 106 FM yesterday and they had the spokesman for Manchester Airport on an afternoon program discussing the potential of the scanners. The softly-spoken Russell Craig seemed to think that it was all light and fluffy, and that we should not worry about privacy concerns. A US Government Airport spokesman also joined the debate and mentioned that they had decided to more than triple the number of scanners in action on US soil to 150 over the next year, and Forbes is reporting that... "two weeks ago, RapiScan sold 30 of its scanning systems to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration for $25 million, or about $160,000 each". The US administration is implementing these scanners as quickly and as quietly as possible, and they have already passed all of the relevant laws to allow them to be used widely and comercially. However, the United Kingdom and the European Union are still holding out on granting full approval, but no major obstacles are expected and all issues should be cleared within a year or two.

An image of Susan Hallowell, Director of the Transportation Security Administration's research lab. Taken with backscatter airport security x-ray system (image: Public Domain)

PRIVACY CONCERNS
Along with the obvious radiation worries with the backscatter scanners, there will be much bigger issues on the table here. At present during trials the scanners are set to slightly blur the genital area, to preserve some privacy, but surely this technology can only be effective if it is used over the entire body as a 'terrorist' could easily conceal items in that area of their body. The scan works by making all the organic matter - like clothes - translucent, and then the body shape is very clear to see, so if somebody is holding a liquid or an object such as a knife in their pocket, or on their person, it will show up. But this x-ray machine works by highlighting the shape of the body, and could ultimately embarrass people who, for example, may have had breast enlargement, or who may use a colostomy bag. And imagine if a large-busted glamour model was walking through the airport, there would be a rush of security guards trying to get a look at the screen she will pass by!

THINK OF THE KIDS!
Nevermind the general perv's out there, imagine if paedophiles see this for what it is, an opportunity to look at young kids bodies. From the sheer amount of abuse which takes place in our western care systems, we already know that the wrong kinds of people are magnetised to these kinds of jobs. I do not see any benefit in this technology whatsoever, as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) both also seem to believe by passionately opposing it's introduction in the US. Maybe I would change my mind if we were catching terrorists daily going through western airports, but that whole 'war on terror' thing was just something which the neo-cons dreamt up to get hold of Caspian and Iraqi oil. Besides the lack of a reason for this level of security - when was the last time you heard of anybody hurting another person with something which they smuggled onto a flight? - allowing this technology to be implemented in our airports will be one of the biggest mistakes we ever make, if that's how this actually plays out. Our kids will not thank us for it now, and most certainly not in the future when it is rolled out to other area's of society, like schools and workplaces. Our governments are currently only testing the waters, so we should really force dialogue on this subject, and make a solid stand before this intrusive technology creeps up on us.

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