the scanners are usually not technically x-ray, some are mm wave, some are xray backscatter.
the technology can see through clothes and produce a grainy bw image of a naked person
the tech is very closed, and the customers are NDA’d into not letting the public know anything
the enhanced privacy changes don’t change the device - its still taking naked pictures of people, its just doesn’t show them to the operator.
before you look, as of a couple years ago there are just about 6 images from these devices out there on the internet. (iirc, there is a researcher who bought one off of ebay to study, but lost track of their work. )
its in use in border patrol type operations to see into the trailers, trucks and cars.
no one can prove they aren’t keeping a database of naked people. ;-)
Repeated security audits at major airports such as YYZ show repeated and regular occurrences of airside staff not getting screened for weeks at a time.
Essentially, many airside staff don’t get screened much, but passengers get the Theatre. Recommendations from repeated audits to change this did nothing.
CBC has a whole piece on it. Once post 911, and again years later (nothing changed).
So many holes in airport security, it’s ridiculous when compared to the passengers’ routine denigrations.
The security is pretty much theatre. Anyone who isn’t an idiot acting on a whim will be able to get anything (within reason) they want past security and onto a plane.
Take a look at the stats on the number of incidents airport security has actually stopped. You see a whole bunch of “airport security stopped this number of guns/knives/etc” but 99.999999% of them were just people forgetting them in the wrong bag.
Hell, I brought a knife onto a plane at least a half dozen times by accident, only realizing when the knife I lost months before fell out at a hotel.
I am a “regular” flyer and a stoner and I never fail to bring with me a sample of devil’s lettuce when I’m leaving for extended period of time and never once I’ve had any issue bringing my hazardous material with me.
One time I even embarked with a small firework in my wallet I forgot I placed there after a party and none bat an eye.
Their first privacy iteration was that they people looking at your naked body would be hiding in some back room and would indicate to the gate agents there was something to look for. I still kind of assume that’s the case (article doesn’t go into it). Seems like it would be more accurate than software.
I remember that one guy that was wearing a metallic speedo (or something like) and popped a viagra before being scanned. Not sure about the speedo, but I do know he was… flexing.
Yeah they changed that pretty quick. It hasn’t been like that for years now.
I don’t fly often, but I did a few months ago, and every airport didn’t have a single scanner machine running, it was all metal detectors. I don’t know if the machines broke and the money to keep them running dried up, or they just stopped caring, or what.
Every time I’ve flown in the past few years they’re still using the scanning machines. I have PreCheck so I get to skip them and go through the metal detector, but the machines were still there scanning away.
I’m well aware. Read what the person I replied to wrote, about how they don’t even use these scanners and use metal detectors instead. That is not my experience.
So there you have it; you don’t need to worry about security seeing all your bits and pieces - just whatever you’ve forgotten to take out of your pockets.
Clearly not written by someone who knows any trans people.
And where do the original scans get saved? And for how long? Who can access those? Can those images be resold? Can I request my personal data and request to have it removed?
I felt 100% violated when I had to go through a machine like this and haven’t felt like flying ever since, I’ll take the train thanks. When the kids couldn’t be scanned because that would constitue child porn, that’s where we should have scratched our head and maybe take a step back.
I own the image of my genitals and have exclusive rights to distribute them, not some TSA human I have never met before.
Yep, intra continental travel is what is left (for pleasure, I guess if you want to emigrate you could take a boat) That’s cool, I have seen like 2% of it. Maybe in 25 years, you won’t be obliged to share the image of your genitals if you want to travel by plane. Cross ocean travel is really cool and can expand your horizons, but I don’t really need it.
And if I recall correctly TSA union had to fight for YEARS to get film dosimeters. Something every hospital requires for radiology/nuclear medicine staff
It doesn’t appear to mention men (or women) anywhere in the article.
Are you saying that because the one scan that is depicted displays a man, then the entire article must be male-focused? Because I don’t agree. Scanners work the same way for both sexes.
It even uses gender-neutral language extensively - someone, people, passengers.
I really don’t see where you’re getting this “the article is sexist” angle you seem to be going for from. Is there something I’m missing?
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