TSA to Phase Out ‘Naked Scanners’

Posted on Jan 18, 2013

Daquella manera (CC BY 2.0)

The airport security agency will discontinue the use of scanners that show travelers’ naked bodies, amid widespread cries of privacy violations.

The scanners’ manufacturer, Rapiscan, had been ordered to develop and implement software that prevents screeners from viewing naked images by June. It failed to meet that deadline. The new software is supposed to show hidden objects on a cartoon figure.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

BBC:

“TSA has strict requirements that all vendors must meet for security effectiveness and efficiency,” the agency said in a statement.

Separately to the privacy concerns, some health officials feared the Rapiscan 1000SP scanner, which uses low-level X-rays to generate the image viewed by screeners, might expose passengers to unsafe levels of radiation.

Under the arrangement with the TSA, Rapiscan will remove all 174 scanners from US airports at its own expense, the Los Angeles Times reported, representing about half of the scanners in use.

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