Airport People Scanners

Federal government is quietly removing full-body X-ray scanners from seven major airports and replacing them with a different type of machine that produces a cartoon-like outline instead of the naked images that have been compared to a virtual strip search.
They are being moved to smaller airports while Congress presses the TSA to adopt stronger privacy safeguards on all of its imaging equipment.
Upgrades have been made only to scanners. Called millimeter-wave scanners, they resemble a large glass phone booth and use radio frequencies instead of X-rays to detect objects concealed beneath clothing.
The scan is processed by software instead of an airport security worker. If the software identifies a potential threat, a mannequin-like image is presented to the operator showing yellow boxes over areas requiring further inspection, by a pat-down for example.
Besides eliminating privacy concerns, the machine requires fewer people to operate, takes up less space in crowded security zones and completes a scan in less than two seconds, allowing screening lines to move faster.
"It's all done automatically to look for threats, so you don't have anybody in a back room that has to look at the imaging," said Doug McMakin, who led the team that developed the millimeter-wave technology at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
In a statement, officials said speed was the reason for the switch to the millimeter-wave machines.
In addition to speed and space advantages, the millimeter-wave technology does not produce the ionizing radiation that has led to safety concerns with the X-ray machines, which required passengers to stand between two refrigerator-sized boxes. Experts say the amount of radiation is less than what passengers get on the flight itself.