TSA tests new technologies for passengers requiring second scanning

Passengers flying out of Phoenix in the coming months may find themselves worrying not only about lost luggage, but also about privacy. The reason: Tey will be test subjects for new full-body scanners which may eventually replace metal detectors at airports nationwide. The airport is testing scanners on passengers who require a secondary screening. Passengers who require a secondary, and more careful, scanning can opt to have the machine do a full-body scan rather than a pat-down. The Press-Enterprise’s Josh Brown writes that officials say the scanners — which create three-dimensional images of a passenger — are more effective than pat-downs at finding explosives, metals, plastics and liquids. These millimeter wave scanners will not affect travelers who are only connecting in Phoenix, officials say, unless they leave the airport, requiring that they re-enter through security. If all goes well in Phoenix, transportation officials could expand the tests to other airports. “We hope to expand the pilot program to LAX by the end of this year,” said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. He said LA/Ontario International and Palm Springs International airports would not be used as testing grounds anytime soon.

The Phoenix airport has also been testing a different machine, called a backscatter, since February. It uses X-ray beams to scan the body. Melendez said the agency will compare the scanners to see which is more effective. The X-ray scanners use radiation equal to about fifteen minutes of exposure to sunlight. The millimeter wave scanners do not use radiation. They are almost 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide. The scanners use radio waves to create a detailed image for security officials to examine. The transportation security agency purchased eight of the machines, which cost between $100,000 and $120,000.

Which brings us to the privacy issue. Privacy advocates have criticized the scanners, saying they are an invasive threat to privacy. “This technology produces strikingly graphic images of passengers’ bodies,” Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said. “That degree of examination amounts to a significant — and for some people humiliating — assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate.”

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said that scanned passengers’ faces will be blurred, and the images will be deleted after being viewed by security personnel. Steinhardt questioned those privacy safeguards. “They say that they are obscuring faces, but that is just a software fix that can be undone as easily as it is applied,” he said. “And obscuring faces does not hide the fact that rest of the body will be vividly displayed.”