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Feb 23, 2007 7:08 pm US/Eastern
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Travelers Weary Of 'X-Rated' Security Scanners
mw
(CBS4)
It's becoming a national issue: airline scanners so sophisticated that they can actually see through your clothes, but are we being asked to give up too much personal privacy in the interest of better airline security?
The "x-rated" x-ray isn't what it used to be. The controversial backscatter technology, once called "an electronic strip search" because it produced explicit images of the human body, has been blurred up and toned down.
The transportation security administration says it can still detect plastic weapons and other threats that conventional magnetometers cannot.
"We are comfortable that this machine will provide both privacy for the public and enhanced security at the checkpoint," said Ellen Howe of the Transportation Security Administration.
Starting Friday, passengers undergoing secondary screening at Phoenix' Sky Harbor Airport will have a choice, a pat down or a backscatter body scan.
"The whole process takes about 45 seconds,"says Howe. "You have two scans. It is very low dose radiation. You can see through the clothing but not through the skin. It is equivalent to the same amount of radiation that you would get in two minutes of an airline flight at altitude."
To address privacy concerns the TSA employees who view the images will be in a different room from the people being scanned.
Men will view male images and women will view female images, but privacy advocates are concerned that those more detailed, embarrassing images will be stored inside the machine and can be viewed at a later time.
"It captures an image of a person as if they were wearing no clothes...and with quite a bit of detail," said Marc Rotenberg from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
The manufacturer says the machine has been modified and only generates an outline, never an explicit image and nothing is saved.
"It is absolutely not like a digital camera," said Joe Reiss of American Science and Engineering. "The machine is designed explicitly so it cannot store or save any images.
Backscatter machines could be powered up at Los Angeles International Airport
and New York's JFK Airport before the end of the year.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)