Airport body scans breach rights: UN expert

GENEVA, March 9, 2010 (AFP) - A UN expert on Tuesday said the growing use of full body scanners in airport security was a breach of individual rights.

Martin Scheinin, the UN special rapporteur on the protection of human rights, said that while countering extremism scanners were both an ineffective means of prevention and an excessive intrusion into individual privacy.


"The use of a full body scanner which reveals graphic details of the human body, including the most private parts of it, very easily is a violation of human rights," Scheinin told journalists.

"It would be a violation of human rights in respect to everyone, but there are particular sensitivities in respect of women, certain religions, certain cultural backgrounds," he added.

Scheinin, who was appointed to monitor the impact of anti-terror measures on individual freedoms five years ago, told the UN Human Rights Council that better detection technology could be better for human rights.

But the "hasty decision" by several countries to use full body scans following a failed Christmas Day bid by a passenger to explode hidden chemicals on a flight to the United States owed more to "a political response to be seen to 'do something'", he argued.

"Full body scanners are a disproportionate intrusion into privacy when measures are not taken to minimise the negative impact on privacy," said Scheinin.

Those measures would include ensuring that no other person sees the original image taken by the scanner and making the image totally anonymous without blurring suspect items.

The UN rights expert said other handheld devices were available to detect explosives through clothing or a solid wall without the need to harm privacy.

If those devices were used as a first stage to detect explosives, more intrusive measures would then be legitimate to examine suspects, Scheinin suggested.


by Gavin Rabinowitz
© 2010 AFP