AS IF NAVIGATING airports – never mind flying – wasn’t stressful enough, now we’ve got to contend with security staff huddling behind screens to snigger at our body parts with their full body scanners.
Fair enough on our way to our holidays. We’ll at least have had a chance to prepare our bikini bods for the beach. But what about on the way back?
Not alone has the fake tan gone blotchy and the waxing waned, but the consequences of all that vino and pasta will be hanging out for all to see. At least, for all security staff.
Designed to show up illicit packages, most airports introducing body scanners will offer you a choice – the embarrassing pat-down or the mortifying naked image, in 3D.
Sure they say the security person viewing the image never gets to see you in the flesh, so to speak, because they are behind a screen. But what if you hear a chortle?
There are more serious issues too. US doctors have raised health concerns about the low level X-ray used to create the image. The fear is that the radiation could increase the risk of skin cancer. Particularly at risk are thought to be children or those with suppressed immune systems.
The risk is dismissed by US authorities, but they can’t deny that problems are already arising. Just last month a security screener at a US airport was arrested for beating up a co-worker.
The problem? He was fed up being slagged about the, shall we say, modest size of his own package, as discovered by colleagues being trained to use the new machine.