»»Privacy Advocates Plan Campaign Against TSA’s Body Scan Machine
A national campaign to call on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to suspend use of “whole-body imaging” at airport checkpoints is set to launch in the United States this week.
Lillie Coney, coordinator of the Privacy Coalition, a conglomerate of 42 member organizations, expects other groups to sign on in the push for the technology’s suspension until privacy safeguards are in place.
Critics say that the millimeter wave technology produces naked pictures of passengers.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) replies that in order to protect the pivacy, the passenger’s face is blurred and the image as a whole resembles a fuzzy negative, furtherly, the officer who sees the image is remotely located and never sees the passenger.
With a body scan taking between 15 and 30 seconds, the machine offers a quick and easy way to detect both metallic and nonmetallic threat items to keep passengers safe, said Kristin Lee, spokeswoman for TSA. She added that over 99 percent of passengers choose this technology over other screening options.
The six U.S. airports are using whole-body imaging as a primary security measure, according to TSA, include : San Francisco (California), Miami (Florida), Albuquerque (New Mexico), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Salt Lake City (Utah), and Las Vegas (Nevada). (source: CNN)
Bookmark this article!
