Scanner security
Tighter airport security has inevitably followed the foiled bomb attack over Detroit at Christmas, but opinions are divided over whether new checks will stop terrorists or simply invade privacy.
Full body scanners are now expected to become the norm at airports worldwide, but some experts have questioned their effectiveness and warned that they will invade passengers’ privacy. Electromagnetic waves are beamed onto passengers to create a 3D image. Each unit costs around £80,000.
Passengers will be going through the scanners at Heathrow by the end of February, with the roll-out elsewhere being discussed with the industry. Trials are already taking place at Manchester Airport.
It is not clear whether all or some passengers will be scanned. Separately, all airports will have to run hand luggage checks for explosive traces by the end of the year.
The scanning technology would remove the need for pat-down searches of passengers. Privacy can be protected if the security guard looking at the image does not see the person being scanned.
Initially, Irish officials were not considering the scanners as they felt security was sufficient. However, Fine Gael demanded extra measures. TD Jimmy Deenihan suggested that Ireland could be left “exposed” if its regime was less strict than the British one; the Republic could also be used as a “backdoor” to England.
Dublin Airport then announced that it would bring in the technology, at a cost of €2 million, if the Irish Government approved. Cork and Shannon would be next, if trials worked.
The US Administration currently operates 40 machines and plans to deploy 300 more in 2010. It has also pledged to do all it can to encourage other governments to follow suit. A review of airport security is also under way and officials have said that scanners are just part of the overall security effort.
Of course, 100 per cent security is unachievable. The Home Secretary has told MPs that scanners would have had a 50 to 60 per cent chance of detecting the Detroit suspect’s explosives.
Civil aviation and transport security are non-devolved matters and decisions are taken swiftly by the Government rather slowly than through Parliament. Local parties therefore have little influence on this area but three have put forward their views.
The DUP has, on the whole, taken a strict counter-terrorism line and its support for the scanners is no exception. A spokesman saw them as a “necessary step to help protect the public” given terrorists’ “repeated and increasingly sophisticated” attempts to bring explosives onto planes.
He would welcome Irish airports introducing the scanners as this would further improve security. With the freedom of movement between North and South, the party thinks the best approach would be to have scanners right across the British Isles.
Alliance’s Justice Spokesman, Stephen Farry, is meanwhile “open” to the use of scanners if it is in line with security advice.
“They are not full-proof and can only be part of a more comprehensive approach to addressing the security threat,” he stressed, the most effective response being intelligence. Alliance is also “strongly opposed” to profiling particular social groups.
The SDLP has not directly commented on the scanners but Mark Durkan has, separately, warned Gordon Brown against sharing intelligence on passengers with “unscrupulous” governments which have poor human rights records.
Civil rights group Liberty warned that the scanners – “electronic strip-searching” in their words – were “an obvious way to show that you are doing something” but still were highly costly and intrusive. It says the technology should only be used when absolutely necessary.
“Much can be done to enhance airline security if cost and inconvenience is no object, still more if passengers and professionals from all communities feel united,” Liberty’s statement added. “Whether on the street or at the terminal, suspicious behaviour is a sensible basis for enhanced checking by security professionals; race or 42 religion is not.”
