Aviation securityItalian airport security drop body scanners
After a six-month test, Italy is giving up full-body scanners for security checks in airports; officials said it takes longer to check a person by scanner — about thirty seconds — than by hand, and privacy measures reduced the scanners’ effectiveness
After a six-month test, Italy is giving up full-body scanners for security checks in airports, the newspaper Corriere della Sera reports. It said that is because they are slow and have not worked as well as had been hoped in checking for weapons and explosives.
According to the paper, Rome, Venice, and Palermo airports have stopped using them, and Milan is expected to stop soon.
Euronews reports that officials said it takes longer to check a person by scanner — about thirty seconds — than by hand, and privacy measures reduced the scanners’ effectiveness.
The machines used in Italy were adjusted not to show intimate parts in detail — the areas most used to hide things.
Other countries are still scanning, with their own rules on how up close and clear to get.
Use of the scanners was increased after the barely failed attempt last Christmas by a terrorist on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit to set off a device strapped to his leg.
