The use of full-body scanners at British airports may breach human rights laws, the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said on Tuesday, complicating the introduction of the latest weapon against terrorism. EHRC say they fear an invasion of privacy and disproportionate scrutiny of Muslim travellers.

"Given the current security threat level”, said Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis, “the government believes it essential to start introducing scanners immediately."
 

The new technology has been hurriedly introduced at London's Heathrow airport and Manchester airport in northern England after a botched attempt to bomb a US bound passenger aircraft on Christmas Day last year. Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is alleged to have boarded the Northwest Airlines flight in Amsterdam with explosives hidden undetected in his underwear.
 

The full-body scanners, which see through clothes to produce an image of the whole body, might have detected the explosives, experts have said.
 

The rights group, however, says the scanners might be violating discrimination and privacy laws, and it had "serious doubts that the decision to roll this [body scanning] out in all UK airports complies with the law." Their concern was mainly over how people would be selected for the scans.

Selection criteria
In a letter to Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis, the EHRC expressed concern "about the apparent absence of safeguards to ensure the body scanners are operated in a lawful, fair and non-discriminatory manner."
 

The Department of Transport said it was committed to ensuring that all security measures are used legally, proportionately and in a non-discriminatory way, and that an interim code of practice addressing privacy concerns has been published in January.
 

In fact, the ‘Interim Code of Practice for the Acceptable Use of Advanced Imaging Technology (Body Scanners) in an Aviation Security Environment’ states that “Passengers must not be selected on the basis of personal characteristics (i.e. on a basis that may constitute discrimination such as gender, age, race or ethnic origin).” However, argues the Commission, an absence of safeguards, such as monitoring who is being scanned and how those scans are carried out, means that authorities are unable to check if in practice people are being unfairly selected on the basis of their race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation or disability.

Privacy and data protection
With regard to privacy concerns and data protection, the Interim Code states that “immediately after the scanning analysis is completed and the passenger moves away from the body scanner, all images of the passenger must be destroyed and irretrievable.” This ensures that data collected may not be linked to individuals selected for screening after the analysis had been completed.
 

A person selected for scanning may request that the screen reader is of the same sex as the person. Security Officers must have completed the appropriate training including how to deal with issues sensitively and to protect privacy, and records of their training must be maintained and made available upon request by the Transport Department.
 

“[The screener] must not be able to see the person whose image they are viewing and the Security Officer(s) resolving any issues identified by the body scanner should not be able to see the image of the person being searched.”
 

Legal counsel at the Matrix Chambers has advised the Commission last week that while the “Interim Code of Practice” covering the use of the scanners has been issued without consultation, the government intends to conduct a full consultation on this issue, with a view to the production of a final code later in the year.