Privacy upgrades for 'nude' airport scanners

US airport full-body scanners that show a generic figure rather than actual images of passenger body parts may be deployed to some airports for tests this year, the transportation security chief said today.

John Pistole, who leads the Transportation Security Administration, said he reviewed testing of the upgraded machines yesterday and progress is being made. The agency may make decisions on further deployments based on the results of live testing in airports this year, he said in an interview.

A passenger is scanned as she prepares to travel at Miami International Airport. Upgraded scanners will show a generic figure rather than a passenger's actual body. Photo: AP

L-3 Communications and OSI Systems' Rapiscan, which make the scanners for US airports, delivered software upgrades to the agency last year that display an avatar and a box alerting authorities to potential threats. The scanners would eliminate the need for the agency to keep an employee in a remote room viewing images of passengers.

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Full deployment of the upgraded machines would "completely address the privacy, the modesty issue" that has sparked complaints about the current devices, he said in a speech to a law group today in Washington.
The agency is accelerating use of the scanners after the US said Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on approach to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009, by igniting explosives in his underpants. The 1000 scanners due at airports by the end of this year will put them at more than half the security lanes at major US airports.



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