UK airports to get naked body scanners after new EU ruling?

Updated
Naked body scanners could be rolled out at all UK airports after EU ruling
Naked body scanners could be rolled out at all UK airports after EU ruling

PA


Naked body scanners could be put to use in airports across the UK after a new EU ruling that says they are safe.

The controversial devices have been trialled at Manchester Airport since 2009, but the EU stopped new trials last year over concerns the radiation they emit is harmful to passengers' health, according to the Daily Mail.

The scanners use X-ray technology to scan through clothing, and the EU's latest study results show that their risk to passengers is very low.

The idea of using them in EU countries came about after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit with plastic explosives he'd hidden in his underwear back in 2009.

A report by Dr David Brenner's from the Centre for Radiology Research at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York suggests that using the machines causes an extra 100 cases of cancer in Americans every year.

But, after the EU's latest study decided the radiation level was "well below the public does limit", the European Commission could approve the technology, which would see the scanners in many major airports across the UK and Europe.

Health fears are not the only problem critics of the scanners have pinpointed; the issue of privacy has also been raised.

The EU states that "passengers are given the right to opt out from a control with scanners and be subject to an alternative method of screening", but, back in November 2011, transport secretary Justine Greening said that passengers who were not willing to be scanned would not be allowed to fly.

What are your thoughts on named body scanners? An invasion of privacy? A health risk? Or an essential tool to protect travellers? Leave your thoughts below...

Related articles

Passengers will be forced to have body scans - or not be allowed to fly

Europe bans naked body scanners at airports




Sign up to our weekly newsletter
Follow us on TwitterBecome a fan on Facebook

Advertisement