Aviation securityNew upgrades will make full-body scanners less privacy-offensive
New software upgrade to full-body scanners would replace the images of a passenger’s naked body with an avatar and alert authorities to a potential hidden threat, eliminating the need to keep an employee in a remote room
The growing use of full-body scanner led privacy advocates to sue the government — but these concerns may soon be eased. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan, makers of the scanners for U.S. airports, are delivering software upgrades that show a generic figure rather than an actual image of a passenger’s body parts. The new display would mark sections of a person’s body that need to be checked.
The revisions “certainly address most of the privacy concerns,” Peter Kant, a Rapiscan executive vice president, told Bloomberg’s John Hughes in an interview. Every passenger will generate an avatar that “looks like a guy wearing a baseball cap,” he said.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) aims to add the software to the machines, which sparked complaints, as more airports get the scanners. As of 27 August, 194 of the devices were in use at 51 U.S. airports, an almost fivefold increase from six months ago. The goal is to have 2,000 of these machines in about 350 U.S. airports by the end of 2014.
Hughes notes that New York-based L-3, which already has one of its revised scanners in use at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, presented its upgrade to the U.S. security agency on 31 August, and the technology is now being reviewed in a federal laboratory, according to the company.
“We look forward to a successful trial and certification process with the TSA this fall,” Bill Frain, an L-3 senior vice president for government sales, said in a statement.
OSI’s Rapiscan, based in Torrance, California, plans to present software for its machines this month, Kant said. The software change will be tested by the agency, he said.
L-3 and Rapiscan shared a $47.9 million contract in April for 302 of the scanners. L-3 will get $31.7 million to build 202 machines, and Rapiscan $16.2 million for 100. The funds were to come from last year’s $814 billion stimulus law.
The software changes are “a pretty substantial development” for the companies and “something that TSA has wanted,” said Jeffrey Sural, an attorney for Alston & Bird LLP in Washington and a former assistant administrator at the security agency. “There’s still a long way to go,” and months will be spent testing the technology, he said.
The software upgrade would replace the images with an avatar and alert authorities to a potential hidden threat, eliminating the need to keep an employee in a remote room. The upgrade “really reduces the personnel costs,” Rapiscan’s Kant said. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated in March that agency staffing costs could climb $2.4 billion over seven years from expanded use of scanners, assuming current staffing requirements.
