Europe Debates Use of Full-Body Scanners at Airports

BRUSSELS (AP) — European nations were sharply divided on Thursday over the need to install full-body scanners at European airports.

Some countries were skeptical of the need for beefed-up security measures, but the European Union indicated that it might compel nations to install the scanners.

After meeting in Brussels, the bloc’s aviation security experts said in a statement that the European Union Commission might issue a binding regulation on imaging technology to improve passenger security, while also addressing privacy, data protection and health issues involved in using the technology.

Italy joined the United States, Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday in announcing plans to install the scanners after a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it neared Detroit on Christmas Day.

American officials are seeking enhanced security measures on all trans-Atlantic flights heading for the United States. That represents an enormous undertaking, however, because European airports carry thousands of passengers on more than 800 flights a day across the North Atlantic.

But even as the European Union’s aviation security experts met to discuss scanners, Belgium’s secretary of state for transportation, Etiennne Schouppe, described the enhanced measures as excessive, saying security requirements at European airports were already strict enough.

Spain, too, has expressed skepticism on the scanners, and the German and French governments remain uncommitted.

A German Interior Ministry spokesman, Stefan Paris, said the bloc’s rules on flight safety needed to be changed before scanners could be used. Germany’s position, he said, is that the scanners cannot be deployed until it has been shown that they will improve security, that they are not a health hazard and that they will not be so invasive that they harm individuals’ rights.

Some countries in the European Union have expressed concern that full-body scanners will be dangerous because of the radiation they emit.

However, the American College of Radiology issued a statement on Wednesday saying that a passenger flying cross-country receives more radiation from the flight at high altitude than from either of the two types of scanners that the Transportation Security Administration is using; these are presumably the same systems to be used in Europe.

The Transportation Security Administration, which uses 40 scanners throughout the United States, has announced plans to order dozens more.