Germany to ‘test’ so-called naked security scanners

The European Union as a whole may not be too keen on so-called “all body scanners” at their airports — the bloc voted them down earlier this month — but Germany is still going ahead and testing out the technology.

Germany’s interior ministry announced yesterday that in the coming weeks it was going to begin “laboratory tests” of these scanners — known in Europe as ‘naked scanners’ — in an effort to see if it’s possible to produce images with these devises that do not show passengers naked.

The technology is controversial, of course, because in the devises that have been tested at airports in the US, the images do show passengers naked, for all intents and purposes. This enables security to more easily detect concealed weapons and other contraband.

The devises have been tested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, but have not appeared elsewhere in Europe.