Surely any measure which toughens security in airports and on flights while also speeding up congestion of people queuing is a good thing, right? Wrong, at least if we’re talking about new x-ray scanners installed in a U.K. airport. The problem is that they take a “naked” photo of each passenger, and child protection experts think this is wrong where youngsters are concerned.

Everything changed on Sept. 11, 2001 when two passenger aircraft were flown into the Twin Towers in New York, killing thousands of innocent victims. Since then, security at airports and on flights themselves has been tightened up by several degrees.

Some security precautions have been in place for generations, notably the metal detector which if failed results in a hands-on experience with airport security personnel. Luggage has for a long time also been subjected to x-ray scans designed to disclose anything hidden in a bag or suitcase.

Now, the two measures are being combined so that human passengers themselves can be scanned. RapiScan machines take a photo of the passenger which is then displayed to security personnel before being automatically deleted. If anything suspicious shows up then that passenger can be taken out of the queue for questioning. And all without forming long queues and holding up legitimate, law-abiding passengers.

But the new scanners installed at Manchester Airport, the first in the U.K., have caused controversy because they take supposedly “indecent” images of children. According to BBC News, Action on Rights for Children (Arch) claim the machines break the Protection of Children Act 1978. Consequently, the airport is limiting use of the machines to people over the age of 18 until the law is clarified.

I think this campaigning is potty because, from every image I’ve seen taken by these machines, they can hardly be classed as indecent, let alone pornographic. If I, as a heterosexual male, don’t get the least bit of gratification out of the images of women the machines produce, then surely pedophiles wouldn’t get anything out of the images of children produced by it.

Maybe this is a fault of the law rather than the producers of the machines or anyone campaigning against them, but then technology has moved on since 1978. The law should clearly be changed to reflect that.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 2:01 am under Crime, Legal, Opinion, Technology.

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