Airline passengers one day might have more to be embarrassed about than a routine customs inspection of their underwear.
A new security scanner that can see through clothing and thus generate three-dimensional "nude" images of people who pass through it is being developed and tested with the financial blessing of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Spurred on by increasing concerns of airline safety and security, the radar system aims to help airport security target plastic explosives and other terrorist paraphernalia.
But in the march to keep up with ever increasing sophistication of these tools of destruction, it seems that rights of privacy - and dignity - are withering away, said Wayne Lafave, a professor with the University of Illinois School of Law.
"It represents a significant privacy intrusion," said Lafave, an expert in Fourth Amendment issues.
The system, developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, uses a holographic imaging radar to generate a 360-degree image of the body. Because the system can render fabric transparent, it is superior to current airport detectors which only root out metal objects. It is also considered superior to X-ray machines, because it doesn't risk exposing people to high doses of radiation, said an FAA official.
The FAA said the project at Pacific Northwest Lab is part of a multi-million dollar research effort at several laboratories to develop better ways of detecting explosives and weapons that are now being made from ceramic and plastic.
These efforts stem from the catastrophic bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, and the recent TWA Flight 800 crash, the cause which is still unknown.
Whatever the cause, the federal government is wont to give security officials new tools to ferret out dangerous materials, whether borne in luggage or on people.
But there are alternatives to see-through radar, said Steve Wolff, vice president of marketing and development for Invision Technologies, the developer of the CAT Scan-based airport luggage scanning system tapped by the Clinton adminstration for use as part of its airline safety plan.
Wolff pointed to infrared systems that use thermal imaging of the body. A system using this technology could be set to "black out" warmer elements such as human bodies and leave "cooler" items such as plastic explosives in full view.
The FAA said it is aware of the current failings of the radar device and that it is working with Pacific Northwest Lab to alter the images of people as they pass through the system. Perhaps a wire image or a mannequin-like image would be projected instead, said the FAA official.
In the meantime, privacy experts like Lafave will be watching to see what develops. The FAA has as yet to set a date for formal testing of this system in airports.
