Europe mulls scanners after foiled Christmas day attack

Airport news for Flights,Travel on 01/02/2010.

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The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has presaged that the plans to execute body scanners at the airports after the foiled Christmas Day bombing attempt of a US aircraft could violate human rights.

The Equality overseer has written to the government expressing apprehensions about the plans to install scanners, saying they may breach privacy regulations delineated in the Human Rights Act.

John Wadham, Group legal director at the commission, said that the right to life is the ultimate human right and the commission supports the government reviewing security, considering the recent alleged terrorist activity.

He wanted that the government needed to ensure that measures to protect that right also take into consideration the need to be balanced in its counter-terrorism proposal and endure they are justified by substantiation.

In a letter addressed to Home Secretary Alan Johnson, the commission requested the government to provide a detailed validation of implementing the new security measures.

The new body-scanners are capable of seeing through apparel to create a three dimensional image of passengers and reveal any concealed weapon or explosives, but privacy campaigners argue that the image produced could be too intimate.

The government has announced plans to install the scanners at Heathrow Airport by the end of the month after Umar Farouk Abdulmutaballb, a Nigerian student, was acquitted for attempting to bring down a Northwest Airlines bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.

The scanners are supposed to be installed at the other airports in UK over a passage of time.

The Netherlands has also announced plans to implement scanners, however, other countries like Spain have been less enthusiastic.

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