Thursday, March 08, 2007

‘Naked’ X-ray machine tried at Delhi airport

New Delhi: Air travellers passing through terminal 1B of Indira Gandhi International Airport here were scanned by an X-ray machine that can see through clothes, for one week in January.
The authorities later decided to dump the state-of-the-art X-ray machine after it failed to reduce passenger clearance time. The authorities decided to test the new backscatter X-ray machine two months ago without any notice or warning to passengers, a senior official with the Central Industrial Security Force confirmed. “India became the first country where it was tested, even ahead of the United States,” he said. The machine was tested at Phoenix Airport in the US last month. The official said the machine was removed after a week. “The machine ... failed to clear passengers quickly and also it was disgusting for officials to see naked pictures of passengers,” said the official.
The vending-machine-sized device, known as SmartCheck, is manufactured by Billerica, a Massachusettes-based science and engineering firm. It was procured by Delhi International Airport Ltd at a cost of about $110,000. The official said the machine is now lying idle in a corner of the airport.
08/03/07 Iftikhar Gilani/Daily Times, Pakistan
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