New technology will make airport body-scanning more private
Travelers may soon feel a little more privacy while flying out of airports with full-body scanners. John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), told Bloomberg that he reviewed testing of an upgraded full-body scanner that shows only a generic figure rather than actual images of passengers’ body parts.
The TSA said the new scanners could be sent to airports this year for live testing. The new technology allows for the scanner to display an avatar and a box alerting authorities to potential threats, which would eliminate the need for the agency to keep an employee in a remote room viewing images of passengers.
Officials also believe the upgrade would “completely address the privacy, the modesty issue” that has caused concern among passengers, Pistole said. Des Moines International Airport doesn’t have a full body scanner.
Iowa TSA director Jay Brainard told the Business Record last month that new security measures have been a non-issue in Des Moines.
“I don’t even think we’ve logged a single complaint,” he said.