Full-body scan or not? Europe divided on airport security steps

European nations were sharply divided Thursday over the need to install full-body scanners at European airports, with some EU members playing down the need for beefed-up security measures.

Italy on Thursday joined the United States, Britain and the Netherlands as nations who have announced plans to install the scanners following a Nigerian man’s reported attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

Washington is seeking enhanced security measures on all trans-Atlantic flights heading for the United States. That’s a huge task, however, since European airports carry thousands of passengers on over 800 flights a day across the lucrative North Atlantic route.

But as EU aviation security experts met Thursday on the subject of scanners, Belgium’s secretary of state for transport, Etiennne Schouppe, described such enhanced measures as “excessive,” saying security requirements at European airports are already “strict enough.”

Spain too has expressed skepticism about the need for body scanners, and the German and French governments remain uncommitted.

Until now, the EU has allowed member states to decide on whether to use body scanners at airport checkpoints. In 2008, the EU suspended work regulating the use of body scanners after the European Parliament demanded a more in-depth study of their impact on health and privacy.

Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport has 15 of the scanners and the Dutch have vowed to buy 60 more. They are also retrofitting the scanners with software that projects a stylized human figure onto the computer rather than the actual body image to address privacy concerns.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pressing for Britain to add more scanners than the few they have been testing at London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, Manchester and other sites.

In Italy, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Thursday that full body scanners will be installed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport, Milan’s Malpensa airport and possibly in Venice within the next three months. In all, about 10 scanners will be purchased.

1 | 2

Next