X-rated airport X-rays to go ahead
By Anne Wright
AIRPORT authorities have confirmed that images of travellers' breasts and genitals will not be obscured during a trial of a high-tech scanner.
For the next six weeks domestic travellers at Melbourne Airport will have the option to go through the airport's new "virtual strip search" which can see through clothing and show peoples' private parts.
George Brenan, Acting Executive Director of the Office of Transport Security, told the Herald Sun Online none of the "chalk outline" images from the X-ray Backscatter would invade people's privacy because there would be "a woman looking at the scans of women and a man looking at the scans of men".
Mr Brenan said faces would be blurred and the screen monitors would be seated away from the passenger line and unable to compare faces to bodies.
But he said that genitals and breasts would not be blurred because it compromised the machine's detection capabilities.
"It's not an image people would find invasive," he said.
"There's a barrier between the people who see the scanned images and the passengers so that no-one can compare.
"There's two screen set up in the screening room, and the person who's directing the passenger through the machine indicates to the screening room whether its a male or female person.
"They're set up separately...They're next to each other but they can't see each other's screen."
Mr Brenan said employees will not be allowed to take camera phones or any other type of photographic equipment into the monitoring room.
"It's not possible to save an image or get it out of the machine, it's physically not possible," he said.
Because the machine cannot save images, it could not be used as evidence in a police investigation or court case, Mr Brenan said.
"The same way you can't actually keep the beep from the metal archway when you walk through, we don't need to keep the image either because it's all about stopping it happening in the first place," he said.
Further trials in Sydney and Adelaide airports will start next week.
Mr Brenan said the scanners were optional and passengers would not be forced to go under the machines.
"If the normal metal detector goes off people have choice between the traditional mechanism which is a frisk and going over with a hand wand... or alternatively you can go through the backscatter machine," Mr Brenan said.
The backscatter is a low-energy x-ray that reflects off the skin to give a "chalk outline" of the person's body.
Mr Brenan said it would take 1000 scans of the backscatter to reach the same level of radiation as a medical x-ray, and 10,000 scans to reach the maximum level of safe radiation recommended in a year.
The machines will be trialled alongside the 'Rapiscan secure 1000', a baggage x-ray machine that can detect explosives in luggage.
Mr Brenan denied the new technology is a direct response to an alleged UK terror plot in 2006.
"It's not a response... It's really just moving with technology," he said.
Mr Brenan said the new machines were a "reaction to a trend and how we protect the Australian public from developing capabilities".
Recent tests of the machines were carried out by the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.
Mr Brenan said the trial was assessing what impact the machines could have on the flow of passengers going through the security point.