Responding to complaints that its full-body security scanners at airports are too invasive, the Transportation Security Administration has been rolling out new technology that adds an extra level of anonymity to checkpoints. The agency unveiled its new scanners Thursday at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
“Clearly it takes passenger privacy to that next level,” said agency spokesman Jon Allen.
The federal agency has come under fire in recent years for introducing scanning technology that reveals almost all body parts in full detail and for increasing the thoroughness of its agents’ pat-down searches. In April, the parents of 6-year-old girl recorded her being patted down by a checkpoint agent at the New Orleans airport, causing a minor uproar as the video went viral online.
The new advanced imaging technology does away with the ghostly outlines of passengers’ bodies that appear on a monitor in a small closed room near the security checkpoints. Instead, a standardized, almost cartoon image of a person appears on a screen next to the scanner as a passenger steps through.
A yellow square appears over any spot where the scanner detects an “anomaly” on the passenger, Allen said. That then leads to a targeted search, as opposed to a full pat-down. It also eliminates the need for someone to review the images in that small room, he said.
Armstrong International is one of 78 airports receiving the updated scanners. The federal agency's contractor, L-3 Security & Detection Services, retrofitted existing imaging machines with the new technology for roughly $3 million, Allen said. The machines have operated at Armstrong since Friday, he said.
Similar units have been in testing at the Washington, Atlanta and Las Vegas airports since February.
For now, the machines do not eliminate the need for passengers to shed all their belongings, belts, jackets and shoes. The machines will detect any solid object in a person’s pocket, including pieces of paper, Allen said.
Passengers may still decline stepping through the scanners, but that will require them to undergo body search to pass through security.
As she stood in an airport security line to fly home to Dallas, Amanda Blount said she was less bothered by the revealing nature of the previous technology than she was by the invasiveness of the pat-downs. If the new scanners and the targeted searches cut down on the hand searches, she said, they are welcomed.
“I think that’s cool, especially now,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to be all touched on, being pregnant.”
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