The British government said yesterday it was working to allay fears that body scanners being introduced at airports would break laws against creating indecent images of children.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week that Heathrow and other British airports will introduce body scanners as part of efforts by countries to tighten security following a failed US airliner bomb plot on Christmas Day.
Privacy campaigners told the Guardian that the images created by the machines were so graphic they amounted to “virtual strip searching” and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.
Terri Dowty, of civil rights group Action On Rights For Children, said the scanners could breach child protection laws, which made it illegal to create an indecent image or a “pseudo-image” of a child.
“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” she told the newspaper in comments published yesterday.
A Department for Transport spokesman said a code of practice was being drawn up for airport staff who will use the scanners.
“We understand the concerns expressed about privacy in relation to the deployment of body scanners,” he said. “It is vital staff are properly trained and we are developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account.”
“Existing safeguards also mean those operating scanners are separated from the device, so unable to see the person to whom the image relates, and these anonymous images are deleted immediately,” the spokesman said.
Some countries, led by the US, have announced additional security measures at airports since a Nigerian man was charged with trying to blow up a US-bound jet on Dec. 25.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, reportedly confessed to being trained by an al-Qaeda bombmaker in Yemen for the suicide mission on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
It was foiled when explosives allegedly sewn into the man’s underwear failed to detonate, and passengers jumped on him.
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