EU lawmakers criticize 'virtual strip search'
China Daily | Updated: 2008-10-23 07:44
EU lawmakers have joined US civil liberty campaigners in criticizing a new scanner technology that allows airport security staff to see through passengers' clothes, calling it a virtual strip search that should only be used as a last resort.
"Many travelers will consider these scanners an enormous intrusion" on their personal privacy, Philip Bradbourn, a British Conservative member of the EU assembly, said on Tuesday.
The new system, which the European Union plans to authorize at the bloc's airports, allows guards to see an outline of passengers' bodies beneath their clothes, making it easier to detect any concealed objects.
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