

UK says air passengers may not opt out of body scans - glenngillen
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/uk-britain-travel-bodyscanners-idUSLNE7AK03D20111121

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glenngillen
Thought it was worth highlighting this quote re the public consultation:

"Feedback from the consultation released on Monday showed there were just 12
refusals out of more than one million scans."

If this "consultation" was the limited trial across the UK including Heathrow
Terminal 3, then I was randomly selected on 2 occasions and told that under
absolutely no circumstances could I refuse the scan _and_ board my flight. If
I refused, I'd be escorted from the airport immediately.

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cstross
Note that this might be illegal insofar as it's in explicit contradiction of a
recent EU directive on scanners that _requires_ an opt-out alternative to be
offered. It's not clear yet whether the new regs carry the full weight of an
EC Directive, but if they do, the UK will eventually have to comply and
provide an opt-out.

[http://www.airport-int.com/news/eu-airport-body-scanner-
guid...](http://www.airport-int.com/news/eu-airport-body-scanner-guidelines-
unveiled.html)

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pavel_lishin
> Greening said the development of new scanner software meant images captured
> by scanning machines would not be copied, saved, transmitted or viewed by
> human operators in the future.

So, this is what's puzzling me. How does this work? Does the magic scanner
black box just give a thumbs up or down? If it gives me a thumbs down, what
happens next? Am I searched? Disallowed from boarding? Placed on a list?

~~~
fluidcruft
Hey, that's bloody brilliant, really. If nobody can see the pictures, it means
they don't actually have to work. Your error rate drops to whatever passes for
necessary theater--just enough false positives to keep the baddies out.
Decades later when the scared public shows up with cancer lawsuits, the device
manufacturers stage the grand reveal: it was just a proximity sensor, prng,
blinking light and siren. I mean since the "real" devices are so easily
circumvented by a determined traveler, why bother. Best. state. secret. ever.

