Indecent Proposal

Do Body Scanners Breach Right to Privacy?

Privacy campaigners have complained that the new body scanners effectively perform a virtual strip search.

UK child protection laws ban the creation of indecent images of children and it is looking like under 18s will be exempt from the scans. Civil liberties groups have called for stringent safeguards that will ensure that images derived from the new system will not be published on the internet or distributed.

A 12 month trial of the new body scanning system was commenced at Manchester airport at the beginning of January 2010.The scanner trial has only been commenced after under 18s were exempted from the security check.

Similar systems are in use in the United States where images are required to be deleted immediately. Concerns have been raised that security staff would not be able to resist sharing scanned images of celebrities or those with unusual physical profiles.

Concerns have been raise by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who have said that the new systems risked breaching an individuals right to privacy. In response to these fears the UK Department of Transport has said that they were developing a staff code of practice for those using the new body scanning technology.

There is currently a rush to introduce the new security technology at British airports due to the apparent attempt to blow up an American aircraft on December 25th by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. It has been estimated that there is only a 50 to 60% chance that the new body scanner technology would have detected the explosive materials allegedly carried by this man.

The proposed introduction of new body scanning technology has raised concerns regarding privacy and civil liberties.

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John Barry: Indecent Proposal Theme