How do the airport whole body imagers work?
Airport scanners work by using waves to form an image. These waves can detect items hidden under clothes when they bounce off the body. Importantly, these images are not saved.
What does the body scanner see?
Body scanners controversies
Where are the body scanners?
The United States currently has the most body scanners. A recent directive from the Department for Transport requires all passengers traveling to the US to go through body scanners. This could lead to more scanners appearing across Europe.
Manchester Airport in the UK used the backscatter scanner for three years. However, they have stopped using it due to concerns about privacy and potential health risks.
Glasgow and Edinburgh airports in Scotland have recently installed full body scanners. These will be used on passengers selected at random.
Other airports with scanners include Amsterdam-Schipol, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Rome-Leonardo da Vinci/Fiumicino, and Venice Marco Polo.
Choosing not to use airport scanners
What might accidentally trigger a body scanner?
Apart from forgotten items in your pockets, several unusual things can trigger a red signal on a body scanner. The TSA didn’t comment on this, but according to Malvini Redden, thick hair can be a major trigger. This is especially true if it’s styled in a braid or bun or held with clips. Body piercings and wire supports in undergarments can also accidentally set off the scanners. External tumors may trigger the machine, but internal growths like fibroids won’t.
Malvini Redden notes that perspiration is perhaps the strangest trigger for the scanners. This is due to the millimeter wave technology and how the waves interact with water. She mentions that because of frequent false alarms, some countries, including France and Germany, have banned these machines.
Can airport body scanners see you naked?
The TSA states that body scanners no longer display naked images of passengers. Malvini Redden explains that early scanner versions lacked privacy protections, allowing checkpoint TSOs to see naked passenger images. These scanners used backscatter technology, but due to privacy and health issues, they were removed from all airports in 2013. Now, scanners generate generic body images instead of unique passenger images.
Millimeter wave machines don’t show nipples or genitalia and don’t measure size, weight, or height. A common question is whether a tampon can be seen during an airport body scan. If this concerns you, rest assured that airport body scanners can’t see inside the body and therefore can’t detect a tampon on a TSA female body scan image. Langston confirms that millimeter wave imaging technology doesn’t detect items inside a passenger’s body or penetrate the skin.
Malvini Redden adds that body scanners also wouldn’t detect anything hidden inside a body cavity, like drugs or hazardous liquids. However, these items could be detected if they were in your pockets. If you leave the airport during a layover, you might have to go through a body scanner again, but not if you’re just catching a connecting flight.
Is it safe to use full-body Scanners?
From 2009 to 2013, the TSA used Rapiscan backscatter machines. These machines raised safety, privacy, and effectiveness concerns as they emitted low-energy X-rays, potentially increasing radiation exposure.
The newer AIT scanners use millimeter wave imaging, a type of microwave, not X-rays. We encounter this non-ionizing radiation daily at low levels, says the CDC. High exposure can cause tissue damage, like sunburn from a tanning bed, but it’s far less harmful than the ionizing radiation once used in airport body scanners.
Frequent flyers might not want daily exposure to this, especially when Rapiscan machines were in use. In 2010, pilot and flight crew unions lobbied to change imaging requirements to avoid excess radiation, Malvini Redden reports. Flight attendants did the same in 2012.
Should regular or frequent flyers worry today? Not at all. “The AIT scanners are safe,” assures Langston. “The energy from millimeter wave technology is 10,000 times less than a standard cellphone’s permitted level.”