Well, that didn’t take long did it? A mere month after London Heathrow introduced full body scanners, the first harassment case is already being investigated by the authorities.
When 29 year old Jo Margetson accidentally walked through the scanner, an airport security guard thought it would be hilarious to mention how he “loved those gigantic tits”. This was of course the situation everyone feared – I’m just surprised it took this long to happen.
The security guard has been issued a warning for sexual harassment, which will no doubt be the first of many to be issued to people that have access to the scanner images.
Miss Margetson is furious about the incident – ‘I can’t bear to think about the body scanner thing,’ she said. ‘I’m totally traumatised by it.”. She spoke to the police after the incident, and they in turn reported the case to BAA, the airport operator.
In the United States, the full body imagers are monitored by staff in a remote location, and we have been assured that images will never be shared – even though the purchase requests made by the government requested scanners that have storage and sending capabilities. In other words – it is only a matter of time till US airports are faced with similar cases.
The problem with this equipment is not the technology – which has been proven to work just fine – humans are the real issue, and knowing that some of the operators manning the checkpoints are going to be on the lookout for “big tits” won’t help the public’s attitude towards them one bit.
(Photo: Getty Images)