Washington, 22/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - At a time when Europeans are seeking to know whether it is necessary to legislate on the use of body scanners in airports, the United States is planning to demonstrate that it is possible to reconcile this technology with the protection of privacy. “We have chosen to put privacy protection means in place. To my knowledge, none of them have been implemented in any European airport to date”, said Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), speaking on Monday 21 June. She said a series of principles on privacy had thus been set in place. First of all, she added, “for whatever reasons, for example religious, there has to be a choice between the metal detector with the pat-down or the pat-down itself”. Callahan went on to say: “We decided first of all that information should not be retained. There is no need to retain that image”. Concerning the viewing of the image itself, she pointed out that there was a “separate room, closed off, not near the screening services where the reviewer will review the images”. She added that this is something to be taken seriously: “It is not a question of jokes. The potential of misuse is significant”. “We also blur the image of the face so the features themselves are quite anonymous. The last thing we do - we change the privacy filter so this is not as specific as it could be. So you are still able to catch the anomalies”. The DHS official felt it was essential for protection of this kind to be set in place before actually installing the technology in airports. The application of guarantees regarding body scanners will also be “key” in Europe, she predicted. Last week, the European Commission gave an opinion in favour of scanning technology, underlining the need for European detection norms (EUROPE 10160). At this stage, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Finland and Italy are testing scanners in their airports. The United States already plans to deploy up to 450 body scanners by the end of this year on US territory and 1,800 scanners by 2014. (B.C./transl.jl)