The appalling "see through your children's clothes" body scanners inflicted on the innocent public at some British airports by are soon to be regulated somewhat by the European Union.
5) The Commission has requested its Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) to assess the possible effects of security scanners which use ionising radiation to human health Without prejudice to Council Directive 96/29/Euratom of 13 May 1996 laying down basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionizing radiation (3) and of Directive 2006/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on the harmonisation of the laws of Member States relating to electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits (4), at this stage, to safeguard citizens' health and safety, only security scanners which do not use ionising radiation are added to the list of allowed methods for passenger screening for aviation security purposes.
(3) OJ L 159, 29.6.1996, p. 1.
(4) OJ L 374, 27.12.2006, p. 10
ionizing / ionising
Watch out for sneaky lobbying by the Backscatter X-Ray imager manufacturers e.g. Rapiscan, to try to get their products added to the authorised list in the future.
(7) By laying down specific operational conditions on the use of security scanners and by providing passengers with the possibility to undergo alternative screening methods, this Regulation, together with the specific implementing rules adopted pursuant to Article 4(3) of Regulation (EC) No 300/2008, respects fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in particular by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, including respect for human dignity and for private and family life, the right to the protection of personal data, the rights of the child, the right to freedom of religion and the prohibition of discrimination. This Regulation must be applied according to these rights and principles.
The appalling Manchester Airport scheme promoted by the Labour government under Gordon Brown (hatred for which does not dim with the passage of time), breaks both of these sections of the Regulation.
It uses a forbidden (for now) ionising radiation Backscatter X-Ray imager and it disobeys the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union by deliberately not permitting an alternative, e.g. pat down search, if passengers refuse to allow themselves or their children to be snooped on by these unnecessary imaging machines and then prevented from flying (regardless of how many security staff are standing around idly).
This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union
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This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.Done at Brussels, 10 November 2011.
The Publication of this body scanner regulation in The Official Journal of the European Union was on the 11th November 2011 (available online from the 15th November 2011)
Therefore this EU Regulations comes into force on Thursday 1st December 2011.
Watch out for Active and Passive Millimetre Wave radar scanners instead.
Remember that Millimetre Wave and TeraHertz scanners / imagers are prone to the effects of wet clothing e.g. during rain or snow.
According to
53. Existing technical facilities allow blurring the face and/or parts of the body not needed for further analysis of the absence of prohibited articles. Equally, it is technically possible to produce instead of real images of the body only a mannequin or a stick figure, which does not reveal any real parts of the screened person's body, but only identifies the location for further search.
It seems that the EU Commission was hoping to ban the use of images entirely , but there seems to have been lobbying from manufacturers who have not yet converted their systems to use synthetic "stick figure" displays to show the approximate locations of suspicious objects,without betraying any actual "naked" human images.
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