New Airport Body Scanners Destroy Images Immediately
Abi BrayThe UK Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, has come out to put everyone’s privacy fears over the new body scanners at the airport to rest. To do this, Lord Adonis made it clear that all images that are taken of passengers boarding planes are deleted immediately and not saved.
The Cabinet Minister also stressed that staff carrying out the procedures are fully trained and supervised. He went on to say that, at the moment, people accept that they are subject to a pat down search when they have set off a metal detector. Soon body scanners will be in the same category.
A pat down search is an intrusive procedure where the security guard actually has to put his hands all over the passenger. However, people know that this is important, because the security guard has to be able to detect whether there are any weapons or other powerful substances that people may be carrying.
Lord Adonis went on to say that he could not stress enough that all images, which are captured by these body scanners, are immediately deleted after the passenger goes through the scanner. All staff that handles the scanners are properly trained in spotting weapons.
Of course, any air passenger that now refuses to submit to a full body scan at Heathrow and Manchester airports will be banned from joining their flights. These two airports started operating advanced imaging technology scanners just recently and Birmingham airport will be following suit later on this month.
The move is strongly being criticized by civil liberty campaigners who say that scanners are an invasion of privacy. Other experts say, whether or not that is true is up for debate, but this is still something that has to be done.
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Filed under Travel News, UK News