Privacy groups are cheering the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for announcing it will not renew its contract with the maker of the controversial body image scanners that allowed security personnel to see nude images of air travelers.
The TSA says the decision resulted from Rapiscan, which makes the scanners, being unable to develop software to alter graphic images of passengers into generic-looking figures. These were also the machines using so-called backscatter technology that had health official worried about cancer risks for frequent travelers.
Mark Rotenberg is executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), one of the most vocal critics of the enhanced airport screening procedures that were implemented in late 2010. He says this is a huge win for personal liberty.
“We think it’s an important victory for privacy. We’ve spent many years trying to persuade the TSA and others that this was not an effective security technique and the costs to privacy were simply too high. It appears now that the agency has finally conceded that that’s correct. I think the benefit is that airline passengers in the United States will have a little bit more privacy without any loss of security.”
Rotenberg says his organization was part of a massive coalition committed to restoring rights and dignity to American travelers.
“There was a lot of political pressure on the agency, a lot of travelers objected,” said Rotenberg. “There were lawmakers, scientists, privacy groups certainly. I think the bottom line here was a sense that it just wasn’t appropriate for federal officials to be looking at the images of naked air travelers which is what these devices had made possible.”
There was one other major frustration with the backscatter technology, according to Rotenberg. While the machines were very effective at giving TSA workers an intimate look at passengers, they were terrible at actually detecting banned items.
“I think there was a real question with the effectiveness of these devices and whether they really do provide better security than the metal detectors and visual inspection that the airlines and security official had done in the past,” said Rotenberg. “We don’t think the answer’s clear. The devices have a limited functionality. They have not, at least according to the TSA, identified any materials that wouldn’t have been found through some of the other screening procedures.”
However, all this does not mean a return to metal detectors. Scanner featuring the millimeter wave technology will still be used. Those machines also capture graphic images but they are immediately filtered to look generic for the security screeners. Rotenberg says the EPIC will work to make sure these machines are used responsibly as well, but right now his group is largely fine with them although he believes they would be best used for secondary screening procedures.
Rotenberg says the government will probably try to infringe on privacy again down the road, but for now citizens have won a major victory.
“The privacy issue is not going away. The government has taken a number of steps over the last few years that do raise public concern,” said Rotenberg. “I think the good news today, and the TSA has essentially conceded this, is that they can do airport screening without having to look under everyone’s clothes. We think that’s right. There should be security solutions that don’t require people in the United States to sacrifice their privacy.”