Dutch get full body scanners at airports
DUTCH airports are to use full body scanners for flights heading to the US in the wake of the Christmas Day bomb plot, it was announced yesterday.
The full body scanners can detect hidden weapons or explosives, but produce naked images deemed too intrusive by critics.
But ministers in the Netherlands ordered the introduction of the super-scanners. “It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster,” said Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst.
“We will make these scanning machines, about 15 in total, available for flights to the United States within three weeks.”
But since Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has twice as many gates for US departures as scanners, not all flights will be covered. Passengers on other flights will be frisked.
Britain’s Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the Government was looking at the use of the scanners, which are on a year’s trial at Manchester Airport.
Security officers there have been banned from using them on children as the images could break child pornography laws.