'Virtual strip search' refused

Full body scanners show everything about you, making them so intrusive that some civil liberties campaigners have described the procedure as a "virtual strip search".

In Strasbourg this week, the EU assembly voted overwhelmingly against the introduction of full body X-ray scanners at airports. The assembly wants EU authorities to carry out a full study of the privacy and health implications of the technology before introducing it.

The technology allows security guards to see the outline and essential structure of passengers' bodies beneath their clothes. Concealed weapons, hidden drugs and liquids cannot be picked up by traditional metal detectors, so supporters of the new X-ray technology argue that it will make flying safer.

Full body scanning is already being used in some US airports and is being tested in the UK and the Netherlands.

The new system allows guards to see more than is decent unless the viewer is also a doctor.

The American Civil Liberties Union have denounced it as a "virtual strip search".

"Many travellers will consider these scanners an enormous intrusion" on their personal privacy, Philip Bradbourn, a British Conservative member of the EU assembly, said this week.

Bradbourn said the technology should not be used routinely on passengers, but could be introduced when suspicions are raised.

"There may be some benefit in having body scanners in our airports, but they should be a last resort and a substitution for a strip search, not a random sample of innocent holiday-makers," he said.