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European Parliament rejects, for now, full body scanners at airports

by Jeffrey White on Oct 24th 2008 at 9:30AM

Here's a quick follow-up from a post I did yesterday.

The European Parliament yesterday overwhelmingly voted against authorizing -- for now, anyway -- the use of full body scanners at European airports.

As I wrote yesterday, these are the scanners that see through people's clothing, ostensibly for the purpose of better protection against concealed weapons and contraband that might make it through more traditional airport security.

The EP, which is based part of the year in the French city of Strasbourg, voted 361 to 16 against the scanners. Instead, lawmakers want considerably more study done on the privacy and health aspects of these machines.

There is currently one European airport that is testing the machine -- Amsterdam's Schiphol.

The full body scanners are popping up at several US airports, amid complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union that they constitute an extreme invasion of privacy and should only be used as a method of last resort in the screening process, when there is justifiable cause.

In Europe, some lawmakers have called the machines "virtual strip searches."

Filed under: Europe, Airports

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