28 JANUARY 2013

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Article from BTNews 28 JANUARY 2013

Body scanners going

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says that it is removing full-body airport scanners that produced what appear to be naked images of a traveller’s body.

The TSA said that it will replace the scanners with new scanners that allow greater privacy.

The TSA has cancelled its contract with Rapiscan, the company that makes the x-ray scanner that produced the revealing body images.  It has 174 Rapiscan scanners at about 30 airports.  Rapiscan failed to meet a congressional deadline to deliver software to protect the privacy of passengers.

TSA spokesman David Catelveter said that the Rapiscan scanners will be largely replaced by scanners made by L-3 Communications.  L-3 scanners, already in use at some airports, produce a generic outline of passengers’ bodies instead of what appear to be naked images.

TSA had increasingly relied on the full-body scanners after a man allegedly tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear aboard a transatlantic flight in December 2009.  The bomb set off a rush to upgrade security to detect explosives underneath clothing.

Some airline passengers considered the x-ray images an invasion of privacy. www.tsa.gov

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