http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/11/09...eut/index.html

There are other versions of the backscatter machines that only projects a wire-mesh image of the human body. Those are completely "de-privatised" and I doubt they would cause any concern, but who knows.

I think this is a step in the right direction. With these machines there would be no need for pat-downs, just point to the travellers body and ask "What's there"?

Great!

Between mercury contamination and this, it's only a matter of time before Americans can't have healthy children at all. ^

Agreed.

But the good news about this UK test is that it's voluntary.

And something tells me that the BAA security people don't punish those who refuse.

Here in the Fatherland, the surly government employee would just say "shut up and walk thru the x-ray or YOU DON'T FLY."

When I was at LHR a month or so ago female security screeners were approaching random women in the line and asking (very politely) if they would try the new machine. It sounded voluntary to me, and I didn't see anyone refuse, but neither did the screeners say anything about what exactly the machine did (my guess is that if they knew they were going to appear virtually naked to the screeners, some women probably wouldn't have gone along with it).

I would have gladly done it, actually, since the regular security lines were pretty long and I'm always curious about new technologies. But it seemed they were only pulling women--presumably because they had an all-female crew working the machine. The machine was behind a pretty tall partition, so the general public could neither see the pax going through it nor could anyone see the image the machine displayed, which I thought was appropriate.

Related thread which may add some information

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=367857