Brussels, 22/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is expected very shortly to adopt a draft implementing regulation amending non-essential joint basic air safety standards. The proposed regulation, on which the European Parliament is due to vote on 4 December, wants to allow the use of body scanners (equipment for scanning persons using either millimetre-wave reflection or e-ray backscatter technology, which produce very detailed images of the contours of the body) during security checks at airports. Unlike what has been said in the English-language press, the use of these instruments will not be compulsory and a raft of additional measures, setting out requirements in terms of performance and conditions under which the equipment may be used, will precede their introduction.
This kind of equipment, used only in Denmark and the United Kingdom for the moment, could come into use in other European airports as a further security check on air passengers. They will be used along with, or could replace, hand searches, walk-through metal detectors (WTMDs) and hand-held metal detectors which are in use currently. Every passenger would, as today, go through a security checkpoint before boarding the aeroplane. The Commission is clear that, under no circumstances, would the use of body scanners be compulsory, even though they present the advantage that they can detect metallic and non-metallic objects which a passenger may try to conceal, whereas more than one other screening method would be necessary to detect such objects. Member states and airports that wish to use body scanners would have to ensure that their use complied with data protection and personal freedom rules, and did not affect the health of the person examined. The draft regulation also sets out the list of equipment that may be used to scan cabin luggage, cargo and mail (conventional x-ray, explosive detection systems, sniffer dogs and trace detection equipment, simulation chambers and storage of mail and checked-in luggage) and liquids, gels and aerosols (tasting or testing of the skin as appropriate, test strips, x-ray equipment, vapour detection equipment and equipment using spectrometry or electromagnetic field technology). The draft regulation also states that scanning methods not provided for in the regulation can only be used on an experimental basis until a new regulation allows their legal use. The regulation also sets out the types of article that may not be transported in the cabin or in the hold of the plane (see EUROPE 9726), and procedures to be applied when dealing with third countries. (A.By./transl.rt)