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Media Coverage – 18th January

_47016483_body_scanner2_466 BBC News – Body scanners risk right to privacy, says UK watchdog

Privacy campaigners welcomed the EHRC's move.

Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, said the government had not considered privacy in its "desperation to be seen to be doing something".

"They are another intrusion into our privacy in the name of protection, yet we know that they are not fail-safe and could see airport authorities becoming reliant on a deeply flawed method of detection," he added.

Sky News – Watchdog Warns About Airport Body Scanners

Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, added: "The EHRC is completely right to question the use of full-body scanners in airports. We know that they are not fail-safe and could see airport authorities becoming reliant on a deeply flawed method of detection.

Daily Telegraph – Airport body scanners could 'breach human rights'

Yorkshire Post – Minister challenged over airport scanners

To find out more about the airport full-body scanners, read our previous posts: Invasion of the full body scanners, and: Airport X-ray scanners pry a little further.

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Media coverage
  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    I’m not in favour of the body scanner thing, not because I care that someone might look at naked pictures of me, but because they’re expensive and pointless.
    Let me put it this way: are we to have a security queue for the security queue? Because if not, then a terrorist can just attack the blasted security queue rather than bombing a plane.
    And if we *are* to have a security queue for the security queue, what about *that* security queue?
    And anyway it’s almost certainly possible to build a bomb from components available in the duty free shops *inside* the secure area, *after* going through the security queue.
    The entire thing is ridiculous bonkers nonsense that makes us no safer in practice than we were anyway.
    Let’s go back to a more sensible security arrangement that doesn’t result in an unnecessary ban on liquids and other unnecessary and stupid restrictions, not to mention the nonsense of having to take off our shoes all the time!

  • richard

    a suicide bomber gets scanned; nothing is seen. he goes to duty free shops and buys vodka, deodorant, and butane lighters which he plans to ignite during flight. butane lighters carry an immense store of energy and explode spectacularly. the huge fireball would instantly kill the bomber and probably the the people in adjacent rows. the aircraft, at the very least, would declare a mayday and be forced to land or ditch before it is consumed by fire.
    total financial cost to the bad guys; £20 in duty free, plus a ticket.

  • Mishmash

    “because they’re expensive and pointless”
    So much of the security arrangements are expensive and pointless: like Y2K, like global warming (now known as climate change), they’re just one big fee-gathering exercise.