Nine more airports across the country will include the new full-body scanners, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Those airports include the following cities: Fort Lauderdale, San Jose, Columbus, Ohio, San Diego, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Oakland, Kansas City.
Three machines go online today at Boston Logan International Airport, and one additional device will be in place at Chicago O’Hare International next week. The TSA also wants 450 more body-scanners to be installed by the end of next year.
The on-screen images show a black, white and gray image of the flesh beneath the passenger’s clothing that will help discover hidden objects. While some worry about privacy, certain measures have been taken to ensure that people’s identities are not being tagged with these sensitive images. Some parts of the body are blurred and guards who scrutinize the images are placed out of the traveler’s site, so there is no personal connection or recognition. The images are also quickly and permanently discarded by the machine, and never stored, according to the New York Times.
