[Reader-list] Full-body scan trials at Delhi airport from May

[Pawan Durani]

We appreciate the Govt for this and making us atleast feel safer.

http://igovernment.in/site/full-body-scan-trials-delhi-airport-may-36812

<http://igovernment.in/site/full-body-scan-trials-delhi-airport-may-36812>
Full-body scan trials at Delhi airport from May
Currently security checks at airports include pat-down searches, door frame
metal detectors and hand-held device scansPublished on 02/03/2010 - 10:36:32
AM
By Murali Krishnan

*New Delhi:* India will start using full-body scanners to screen passengers
at the international airport here on a trial basis from May and decide by
the end of the Commonwealth Games in October who will get the multi-million
dollar contract to supply such equipment.

Currently security checks at airports include pat-down searches, door frame
metal detectors and hand-held device scans. But these can mainly detect
metals and not non-metallic objects that can be kept hidden in one's
underwear like the one carried by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian
passenger, on a North-Western airline from Amsterdam to Detroit on
Christmas.

The plastic explosives Abdulmutallab concealed in his underwear failed to
detonate properly, resulting only in flames and popping sounds.

As part of the process to strengthen security, all ground staff and airline
officials will be issued biometric identification cards from March with
dedicated points to gain entry into Delhi airport, a top official in the
Civil Aviation Ministry said.

"This is a secure and efficient means of identification," the official said,
explaining that the biometric card will have an embedded micro-chip
incorporating some tamper-proof features of an individual that will be
virtually impossible to forge.

"It will have an individual's unique physical traits such as fingerprint,
the pattern of the iris, facial features. Given the era we live in,
biometric procedures in the aviation sector is essential," the official
said.

Around 30,000 people work at airports daily, including the security
personnel, and the process of biometric cards will cost no more than Rs one
crore.

Speaking about body scanners, which have left people worried over intrusion
into their privacy because of its potential to scan through clothes, the
official said there was no cause for worry and the government has already
decided to introduce the scanners.

"We need around 125-200 full-body scanners for Delhi and Mumbai. The trials
will run through the end of the Commonwealth Games. These scanners cost
between Rs 8 million and Rs 10 million apiece," the official said.

He said trial runs will not only give the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security,
the nodal agency to frame security standards at airports, a constructive
insight into functioning of equipment but also which company is suited best
to be given the order.

"Only a handful of countries like the US, Britain, France and Israel
manufacture these scanners. Most of the scanners on trial here will be from
US companies. The trials will also help us assess performance during power
fluctuations or outages."

The official also sought to allay apprehensions that the full-body scanners
that will be deployed at airports will compromise an individual's right to
privacy and modesty, as they have the provision to convert the images into
graphics.

"At Amsterdam's Schipol Airport, the scanners are retrofitted with software
that only projects a stylised human figure on to the computer rather than
the actual body image," he said.