The machine, which is about the size of a revolving door, uses low-energy electromagnetic waves to produce an image of a traveler’s entire body on the screen of a computer. It can pick up graphic images and medical details such as a pacemaker or a colostomy bag.
Britain, Spain, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Thailand and the Netherlands are already using this type of imaging technology at their international airports. Each machine costs approximately $120,000.
The process is called millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology and it produces such detailed images that people from the American Civil Liberties Union are defining this machine as an assault on the dignity of passengers that citizens of a free nation should not have to tolerate.
Here’s how the machine works: If you’re the lucky traveler that gets chosen for additional screening, you get escorted by a TSA agent and you have the choice to either get patted down or to step into this machine. The machine quickly scans you with radio waves. The radio waves bounce off the body creating a three dimensional image that looks like a photo negative. That image is sent to a TSA agent located in another room. The agents look for anything that may appear to be suspicious and determine whether or not the passenger poses a threat or not.
The passengers faces are blurred out using a “modesty filter” and the images are not saved but the ALCU expressed concern that TSA officers may not resist the temptation of saving the images of certain people. Those images could end up on the internet.
TSA officials say the millimeter wave is harmless and projects 10,000 times less energy than a cell phone transmission. But it sees more than a typical magnetometer (more commonly referred to as a metal detector.) A magnetometer can only pick up metal or weapons but this new machine can pick up other materials that may be hidden — and it provides a picture.
The general public seems to have mixed opinions about this new type of screening. Some people say it’s a very evasive way of conducting business. Others feel as though their dignity is at stake. The optimistic ones feel as though whomever is looking at these screens aren’t seeing anything new and if it’s for the greater good of being on a safe terrorist-free flight, it’s worth it.
If you’re flying through one of the airports using this technology, you can form your own opinion.
Jonathan Masker is a wireless solution expert and a self-proclaimed gadget guru. Reach him at jonathan.masker@gmail.com.