Europees Parlement eindigt openbare veiling bodyscans (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament on Monday afternoon will close the bidding procedure for its six body scanners, with the winning tender set to be announced on 12 March.
The machines, which were acquired in 2005 and never used, are put up for sale at a minimum price of €65,000, roughly half the price they were bought for.
Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the EU i legislature's administration quietly decided to acquire these scanners for €725,730, at the recommendation of an external consultant.
Last year, the machines became a bit of an embarrassment for the parliament, when MEPs found out about the purchase. Only a few months earlier, they had opposed a bill allowing an EU-wide roll out of body scanners airports, arguing that they offer a "virtual strip search." But they were unaware of the existence of those same devices in their own basement.
The scanners were subsequently put up for sale at the end of January.
A public viewing mid-February failed to attract scores of potential clients, especially since even for "professionals", the devices are outdated technology, Jean-Pascal Rihoux from the Parliament's security service told this website.
"Now they are using more modern models. This same type is used in Afghanistan for military purposes, and in Pakistan as well," Mr Rihoux said.
The closet-like metal boxes use "soft x-rays" to portray the exact shape and features of one's body, displaying any weapons, metal or plastic items which could be used as explosives.
"You don't see the details, but you see if it's a man or a woman - and of course there is some very personal data," the official admitted, while adding that there was no way a scanner could be created without showing "specific body parts."
As for the impact on one's health, Mr Rihoux said the "Rapiscan Secure 1000" were using the same x-ray technology deployed for normal medical scans.
"But those are much stronger, you see through the body. These rays are some 1000 times lower than the medical x-rays. Of course, x-rays are still x-rays, they still have an impact on your body," he explained.
On the EU's official tender website, the device is advertised as being "the only commercially available system" for identifying metal, plastic and ceramic weapons on someone's body. The next step, security officials fear, could be explosive implants underneath the skin which elude the scanners' scrutiny.
Rules for scanners
A second attempt to establish EU-wide rules for the use of such scanners in airports may pass this year in the European Parliament, foiling the foiled attempt to blow up a plane on a transatlantic plane departing from Amsterdam.
But privacy-concerned MEPs point to the fact that despite increasingly intrusive security measures, terrorist attempts are made possible by the "failure to connect the dots" on the side of law enforcement authorities, not by the lack of extra safety precautions.
The parliament's scanners, as well as the ones rolled out in British and Dutch airports, are capable of storing and transmitting images, although authorities have given repeated assurances that the images are deleted immediately.
"The capability for these scanners to store and export data is unnecessary... even if a possible suspect is detected, there is still no argument for picture storage, since the purpose is to identify those to be stopped and manually searched, not to provide evidence," British Liberal MEP Sarah Ludford i wrote in an op-ed last month.
The senior MEP urged British and EU parliaments to ensure that authorised scanners are "physically" not capable of storage and transmission of images. "This seems the only way to guarantee that the state will not try to further invade our privacy in future, and that images of celebrities, children or others will not find their way onto the internet and TV," she argued.
Such concerns were already highlighted last month by reports that the naked image of the Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan was printed and circulated by scanner operators at Heathrow airport. Mr Khan even stated he had autographed some of those prints, claims airport officials fiercely denied.
EUobserver