Body scanner trials to begin at Heathrow next month

Body scanner trials are due to start at Heathrow airport early next month, and will involve a machine that has spotted the type of concealed device used in the Detroit airline bombing attempt. The airport's owner, BAA, is preparing to install a scanner in each of its five ­terminals. The trials will use two different technologies that see through passengers' clothing. One trial will involve "backscatter" technology, which exposes travellers to low-level x-rays. This is already being used at Manchester airport. The Heathrow trials are expected to begin in the first week of February. However, a backscatter scanner already in place at Terminal 4 could start operating as soon as this week, if early government approval is given. Security staff at Manchester recently mocked up such a device and replicated the underwear bomb that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab smuggled on to Northwest Airlines flight 253. The machine singled out elements of the fake weapon. "We could see that there was something on the person that would have required a further search," said a spokesman for Manchester airport, whose machine requires passengers to stand between two Tardis-like blue boxes. Under a new security regime, due to be introduced by the government next month, the suspect passenger would then be led away for a secondary examination that would include using chemical swabs to test for explosives. Pat-down searches of passengers and hand luggage inspections will also increase, amid a heightened state of terror alert. The terrorism threat level was raised from "substantial" to the second highest level of severity, meaning an attack is "highly likely". If the trials are successful body scanners could be rolled out across all UK airports. The second type of machine uses a "millimetre wave" system, which bounces radio waves off the human body to form a 3D image of the passenger. Both types of technology have raised privacy concerns, owing to the graphic nature of the passenger images, with civil liberties campaigners condemning the process as "virtual strip-searching". The Department for Transport (DfT) has drawn up a preliminary code of conduct for using the machines, and it will follow some guidelines used by the US Transportation Security Administration. These state that the security officer guiding the passenger through the machine never sees the image, and that the employee viewing the scan must be based away from the passenger, in a secure room. The two officers communicate with wireless headsets; and, once viewed, the scan cannot be saved, printed or transmitted. A DfT spokesman acknowledged the privacy concerns. "It is vital that staff are properly trained, and we are currently developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account," he said. "Existing safeguards also mean those operating scanners are separated from the device, so unable to see the person to whom the image relates, and these anonymous images are deleted immediately." The trials are expected to involve at least three manufacturers, whose machines cost around £100,000 each. Rapiscan, the manufacturer of the backscatter machine, has been involved in trials at Britain's largest airport before.