Airports forced to make change to X-ray machines after horror over what they were able to actually see
Many of us have been through airport security so many times in our lives that it's started to feel like you can do it on autopilot - remove your belt, get your liquid bag out, put your laptop next to your bag on the tray and all the rest.
Sometimes, though, you also have to step through a full-body scanner - but it wasn't always quite an inocuous x-ray.
There was the implication that it can see through your clothes, which was a little uncomfortable.
However, it turns out that there was a period when these scans genuinely were way more invasive than people thought, which caused real controversy.
Advert
After a failed terrorist attempt in 2009 that revolved around bomb parts hidden in someone's underwear, new scanners started to slowly spread through US airports, made by a company called Rapiscan.
These scanners were much more expensive, reportedly around $180,000 each, and had far more powerful technology in them, and were used in a handful of airports in the US and UK.
Whereas other scanners would produce a silhouette that highlighted metal parts, these ones gave basically a full-body infrared image, which meant that a TSA or security agent would effectively see you completely nude.
When news of this got out, it caused an immediate and significant backlash, as you can easily imagine - people were pretty creeped out to discover they were being seen in full detail by strangers, without it ever having been adequately explained that this was how the scanners worked.
It didn't take long for the TSA to accept that the public was not going to consent to use the scanners en masse, and reportedly issued a statement announcing that they would be removed: "Due to its inability to deploy non-imaging Automated Target Recognition (ATR) software by the Congressionally-mandated June 2013 deadline, TSA has terminated part of its contract with Rapiscan. By June 2013 travelers will only see machines which have ATR that allow for faster throughout."
ATR, as it's called there, basically means that new scanners produce a generic image of a body, with anything on your body that needs to be questioned, like a belt buckle or steel-capped shoe, highlighted for the TSA to see.
This is far more respectful of your privacy and dignity and is unsurprisingly therefore way less controversial.
So, you can go through airport security with that load taken off your mind, the next time you're on the way to a holiday destination.