Matthew Vella
Home Affairs and Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici has said the European Commission “will have to strike the right balance” over the body scanners it is planning to introduce in all airports by 2010 to heighten security measures.
Mifsud Bonnici said it would be premature to draw conclusions over the Commission’s plans to introduce virtual strip searches, saying the matter was at “an early stage of the process, particularly since the type of body scanners to be used, their method of operation and their characteristics are not as yet clear.”
But the Commission wants to have the body scanners, already in use in American airports and on test drive in London Heathrow, installed across all EU airports in less than two years.
The European Parliament’s transport and tourism committee, of which Labour MEP John Attard-Montalto is a member, is not going to use its powers to oppose the Commission’s plans because Commission vice-president Antonio Tajani has told the committee that the Commission’s intention is to allow the use of body scanners only as an additional option for the screening of passengers, not an obligation.
As a “technical measure”, the European Parliament can reject the whole proposal.
Tony Bunyan, of civil rights watchdog Statewatch, said: “In an EU of ‘common values’ and standards, a proposal which would subject people including women, old people and children to such a shameful and undignified experience and that offends against proportionality, privacy and civil liberties should not be sanctioned anywhere.”
Attard-Montalto has indicated he will probably vote in favour of the millimetre-wave scanners, that can strip airline passengers completely naked to disclose hidden guns, knives or explosives... as well as their private parts.
“If I had to choose between extra security against the invasion of privacy, I think I would be in favour of the body scanners,” Attard-Montalto has said.
Attard-Montalto however admitted that the introduction of body scanners was an invasion of privacy.
In his comments to MaltaToday, Carm Mifsud Bonnici said that airport security was could not be taken any less seriously:
“History has thought us that airport security is not to be taken lightly, because its failure could inevitably lead to loss of life. There is no doubt that this is a matter of importance which should constantly be enhanced since it does not only protect our national security, but also thousands of lives against potential wrongdoers.”
The scanners, which create a full body scan of passengers that leaves little to the imagination of security officers, would produce graphic images of people’s bodies, complete with genitalia and other sensitive personal details such as evidence of mastectomies, colostomy appliances, penile implants, catheter tubes and even the size of their breasts or genitals.
The scanners have just been introduced in Australia, sparking a debate over privacy issues. Terry O’Gorman, who heads the Council for Civil Liberties, says the technology is a “total invasion of privacy”:
“You have to ask yourself: has the war against terrorism got to the stage where we, in effect, have to have our genitals shown, viewed by someone in another room, in the name of airport safety? We say this goes too far.
“We say it skews the balance between proper security on the one hand and the maintenance of basic civil liberties, particularly bodily privacy, on the other.”

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt

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