In the "Keeping Us All Safe?" Department, Good Morning Silicon Valley notes that a company named BodySearch has devised a scanner designed to look beneath clothing. Its use of low-powered X-Rays should cut health risks, by penetrating only a couple of millimetres below the skin. Sounds like a win all around, much easier than doing full body searches on everyone. It's the Superman ideal of X-Ray vision.
Well, maybe the schoolyard fantasy of X-Ray vision. Scans are so sharp that the shape of a person's navel is visible. As you might imagine, that level of detail applies... elsewhere:
"David Banisar, deputy director of Privacy International, said his colleagues were shocked when they saw an image recorded by the device. "If you look at the pictures, you could literally see everything..."Welcome to the airport version of The Full Monty. U.S. Customs uses BodySearch at international airports in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and New York's John F. Kennedy.
Privacy advocates rightly focus on the effect this may have on the public. As I recall some of the beaches I've been on, we might also pause to consider the potential trauma this represents to federal employees. The Horror!
UPDATE: The results of the scan are now displayed superimposed on the figure of a sexless mannequin. This should eliminate a lot of trauma lawsuits from both sides.
How to keep that under reasonable control: Any passenger being asked to submit to such examination shall have the absolute right to request to see the visual results of the operator being subjected to such an examination, first!
cnhuckle
Now THAT could be a scary thing. Then again, I have visions of word spreading that security operator X at such and such an airport is hot... and next thing you know, everyone starts showing up wearing Arab headresses.
proposed system : the people viewing the images should be isolated from the people being viewed. if there's a problem, a different person should deal with the person being screened.
it's a lot easier for people to deal with being seen "naked" if they never have to see the person or deal with the person who has seen them.
if the apparatus speeds up the screening system (i imagine it would -- anything is better than having to do the Wand Dance), people would be willing to put up with quite a bit for the sake of convenience.