Heathrow Express "see through your clothes" scanner trial begins - 80 second scan time = queues and missed trains or planes - updated
The Independent reports some details about the 4 week trial of the "see through your clothes" passive millimetre wave imaging scanner which has been installed at London's Paddington mainline railway station on the Heathrow Express platform.
Station trial for anti-terror systemBy Peter Woodman, PA
Published: 11 January 2006The workings of new high-tech security systems to detect would-be train terrorists were shown off today at Paddington station in London.
A seven-metre-long steel box has been erected next to Heathrow Express platforms at the west London station.
Inside the box is a millimetre wave scanner which can detect items concealed beneath clothes.
Next to it is a baggage-screening device, and the whole security box is to be tested for four weeks at Paddington starting from tomorrow.
The new systems were first announced last autumn by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, and there will be further trials on the London Underground and at other mainline stations.
It will take passengers about 80 seconds to pass through the security box. During the trial at Paddington a small number of randomly-selected passengers will be asked to take part.
80 seconds per scan, minimum !!
Since the Heathrow Express service leaves Paddington every 15 minutes, that means that passengers (who will certainly be struggling with suitcases on their way to the airport) will miss the next train on which they have booked their tickets / reserved their seats, if there are as few as 10 or so people in the queue ahead them to be scanned.
On entering the box they will pass into the scanner where they will place their feet on footmarks on the floor and raise their arms in the air. In the far corner of the box is a booth in which a screener sits, and this screener will receive a robot-like body image of the scanned passenger.At the same time the passenger's bags will pass through an X-ray machine, and if necessary there will also be a body search of the passenger by hand.
A person cannot be identified from the image and the image is deleted when the next person enters the scanner. Male staff will work only with male passengers' images and female staff only with female passengers' images.
That is irrelevant if the "randomly selected" passengers are Children. The operators will be guilty of "creating or distributing" Child Pornography, a term which includes synthetic digital images. If children are automatically excluded, then the whole system is useless against smugglers or terrorists.
The trial tomorrow is being seen merely as a test of the equipment and not as a security measure as such, although it could lead to the use of the equipment as an anti-terrorist measure eventually.
So what aspect of the "technology" is being tested on the public ?
What does this prove that a group of paid experimental test subjects could not ?
The ability to see people naked throough various types of clothing ? The ability to detect various deliberately concealed items ?
How can this be a scientific test, if the data is really destroyed after each scan ?
Where is the proof that this system is safe for, say, pregnant women ?
Will people who refuse to be scanned be treated as "terrirst suspects" and stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 anyway ?
Last November Mr Darling made it clear that it was not possible to introduce airport-style security on the railways and on London Underground because of the sheer weight of passenger numbers.He told a transport conference in London in November: "You just simply couldn't have people queuing up for hours to get through - you would be doing the terrorists' job for them. What you can do is ask yourself whether, on a selective basis, at a point where it is appropriate, it could help to make things safer and reduce the risk.
So how much public money is being wasted to prove the foregone conclusion that the technology is still orders of magnitude too slow and too expensive, even for limited use on the Heathrow Express ?
UPDATE:
According to The Register
the system installed at the Paddington Heathrow Express platform is:
"The body scanner is a millimeter wave machine - aka a "see through clothes scanner" - made by Santa Clara, California-based Safeview Inc and operated by Surrey-based Airlock Aviation Ltd."
However, this technology is not a passive system using natural background millimetre waves, it uses active millimetre wave scanning.
Who exactly in the UK has certified this as safe for use on the British public ?
The company proudly trumpets (January 5th 2006 press release) that it has been granted certification under the so called SAFETY Act -"Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act 2002" (N.B. this link ends up at an SSL /TLS website) i.e. they have been granted limited liability from lawsuits for damages (in the USA) if their equipment fails to detect a bomb , or, probably also, if their equipment causes health problems for the public or the operators.
Comments
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) briefing the press at the No. 10 Downing Street daily press briefing of Wednesday 11th January 2006, failed to convince anyone that this "technology trial" is anything other than a waste of time and money.
Note how the PMOS weaseled out of answering the question about racial profiling.
Note how the professional journalists failed to ask about Child Pornography or possible health risks.
The question of "random searches" is entirely separate from the use of "see through your clothes" scanners or not.
Posted by: wtwu | January 11, 2006 8:35 PM
Why can't they admit, they don't know what they are doing, but must be seen to be doing something? It's just so much horse shit.
Posted by: alan Connor | January 12, 2006 9:47 AM
@ alan Connor - Admit ignorance or that they are wasting public money ? They would then, in all decency, have to resign from office.
Posted by: wtwu | January 12, 2006 11:08 AM
Hang on a minute. Naked children is not child pornography - people see naked children in changing rooms all the time, nudist beaches, etc, so im sorry but in my opinion this is not an issue. The incredible impracticality of this is my problem :)
Posted by: Dominic | January 12, 2006 4:02 PM
@ Dominic - that is exactly how the draconian Child Porn laws of the UK are defined: the instant that a "child porn" image is created or copied or stored even temporarily, a serious offence has been committed. There is no leeway for commonsense or appreciation of technology.
Most people do not frequent nudist beaches in the UK !
There is no need for the technology to create a viewable image in order to detect something suspicious, which would then lead to a pat down search by a security guard.
What difference does it make if the suspicious object is in, for example, your left hand or right hand pocket ? A proper search should be checking both pockets.
Posted by: wtwu | January 12, 2006 5:02 PM
Yes but if I have a naked picture of a baby in the bath in a photo album, that is not child porn. My point is, it is not "pornography", there is no sexual connotation. A nude image with no sexual orientation (There are guidelines I believe?) is not considered pornography.
Posted by: Dominic | January 12, 2006 8:13 PM
@ Dominic - "A nude image with no sexual orientation (There are guidelines I believe?) is not considered pornography."
There are no consistent guidelines, it is all down to the arbitrary Opinion of a random Police Constable.
There are plenty of people who would consider such images to be child porn, even if you do not.
Surely the vast majority of the public would object to strangers i.e. security guards, viewing naked images of their children ?
If there is any suggestion of a sexual motive, then the Sexual Offences Act 2003 sections 67 and 68 offence of Voyeurism applies (to adults as well as children).
It is unclear how babies or small infants could be safely scanned by the equipment anyway, as you are meant to stand still whilst the scan is taken, just like for a medical x-ray.
Posted by: wtwu | January 12, 2006 8:53 PM
Has any one experienced problems with sd (flash) cards being scrambled? I've had two sd cards scrambled on the same day; in one camera and one palm pda. This has previously happenned before and now a day afterwards; in only pda. Worked before I entered Paddington didn't work after? Could be something else but? admittadly not gone thro scanner but have arrived on different platforms nearby? It might not be Paddington but very odd as it has not happened to these 2 cards, 1 camera, before? (pda is newish though)
Anyone else experienced this?
Posted by: adamm | January 21, 2006 12:28 AM
my problem is how to protect the public from the tyrany of the state. remmember the 7 bullets in that mans body.
we have been absolutly treated like guinea pigs. i think the last thing politicians do is to think about people. ethical forigne policy is the solution.
Posted by: Ochiba Shigure | January 22, 2006 8:06 PM
It does look as if at least one Member of Parliament shares our concern about "see under your children's clothes" scanner equipment and "making or distributing child porn", and has tabled a Parliamentary Question:
We await the Answer with interest.
Posted by: wtwu | February 15, 2006 2:55 PM
Excellent comments made by all, but telling each other will not solve the problem. The same technology is in use at Heathrow Terminal 4.
For Heathow users please write about your experience (as I have) to:
Mr Mike Clasper CBE
Chief Executive Officer
British Airport Authority plc
130 Wilton Rd.
London, SW1V 1LQ
United Kingdom
On no website can I find people saying "I approved of the experience, it's a good thing", all the statements are in the negative. So write and complain, otherwise our civil liberties will be continually erroded until we have none left!
@ Dominic -
http://www.iwf.org.uk/police/page.22.36.htm
It would need to be the courts decision of what the word "indecent" means, and how this applies to each individual case presented before the court.
I believe you have absolutely nothing to fear of taking photographs of your own children at bath time (most parents have at least one photo of their child like this, mine included taken many many years ago), but being in possesion of photos of other people's children may not be so pleasing to the court.
You made a comment about seeing naked children in changing rooms and at nudist areas. Obviously, seeing is very different to photographing.
A recent example here in Australia is of a man arrested for taking photographs of top-less women on Bondi Beach. Yes you can see them, yes they are in a public area, but no you can not take photographs, especially without their consent.
This particular man was also found masturbating under a beach towel, in its self an offence.
As I said the average parent has nothing to fear, Uncle John with his 1000+ image collection however may not get off so lucky...
As for the body scanner, well we can only write and complain, and hope that if enough people do, the authorities will listen.
Posted by: Peter Armstrong | June 3, 2006 2:18 AM