New x-ray can see through clothing

[ggnl]

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LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A new X-ray machine at London's Heathrow airport, which sees through passengers' clothes, has been attacked by civil liberties campaigners as a "voyeur's charter."

The machine uses low-level radiation to see through clothing, producing an anatomically detailed black and white image of the body underneath.

A spokeswoman for BAA Heathrow said 98 percent of participants gave positive feedback.

But British civil rights group Liberty called the X-ray images unjustified and intrusive.

"It's an obvious invasion of people's privacy -- it's a voyeur's charter."

The American Transport Security Administration, which has considered using the machines at U.S. airports, echoed Liberty's concerns.

"There are a number of privacy issues that need to be addressed before we would do field tests," a spokeswoman said.

Scanners currently looking for concealed weapons or explosives on passengers have shown limitations in the past.

Traditional X-ray machines used to scan baggage have often struggled to identify plastic explosives, accidentally sounding alarms when detecting chocolate, cheese and peanut butter because of their similar density to the explosive Semtex.

Heathrow, which for security reasons declined to say how the new X-ray machine improves on current scanners, denies the machines could cause embarrassment.

"It's a very low dose X-ray, the images are not stored, it's same sex operated and the operator that sees the image will not see the person," said the airport spokeswoman.

"There will not be a situation that could cause embarrassment," she added.

 

[Nitemare]

They have had these already for years. I ordered mine out of the back of a comic book about 20 years ago.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

if you can dream it, you can build it

more proof! and now, yeah it is a bigass machine now, but once you research miniaturization you can build oil rigs and make it portable!