LONDON: Full-body X-ray airport scanners, which scan through passengers’ clothes, creating a detailed ghost-like image of the naked body, are set to be scrapped within weeks in many European countries.
Critics said the machines, which have been tested at air terminals since 2009, invaded passengers’ privacy and radiation they generated raised the risk of cancer. Some Muslim groups also refused to walk through them on religious grounds.
Although the European Commission (EC) ruled that the cancer risk was ‘close to zero’, but under the Brussels legislation, the three-year trial period has ended, and it has been decided not to ‘prioritise’ them for permanent use across the continent, the Daily Mail reports. The scanners will now be replaced with ‘privacy-friendly’ machines, which use radio-frequency technology.
Manchester Airport, which is the last in Britain to be still using ‘naked’ scanners, said it will now have to spend 1.1 million pounds to replace them with the new devices. “We’re baffled by this situation because health experts say they are safe, plus the overwhelming majority of our passengers and security staff prefer body scanners to frisking,” airport’s chief operating officer Andrew Harrison said. “It’s frustrating that Brussels has allowed this successful trial to end,” he added. (Agencies)
