Nearly three months before Umar Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up a Delta/Northwest Airlines

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jetliner bound for Detroit from Schiphol International airport in Amsterdam, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) had announced that it had received $355 million from government for “a lot of really nifty improvements to aviation security.”

The TSA plans to use part of this money for investments in technology like the checked baggage screening system, closed circuit TVs, explosive detection systems and liquid scanners. Also included is a plan to invest $25 million to deploy 150 ‘backscatter imaging units,’ which allow screeners to detect threats under people’s clothes.

The backscatter system, made by American Science and Engineering Inc, picks up images produced when materials scatter X-ray photons. An X-ray scatter pattern is more specific than an absorption pattern when it comes to identifying organics.

Backscatter systems are very good at imaging organic material. They easily pick up the scatter patterns of drugs and explosives and body parts. This ability to detect and identify organic material, along with a technology called ‘Flying Spot’ that lets the machine pinpoint the location of a particular X-ray beam at any given moment in time, allowing backscatter images to be incredibly accurate and lifelike.

That’s also the reason why some people object to incorporating the technology into airport security checkpoints. Most of us don’t want strangers viewing accurate and lifelike pictures of our bodies. And yes, it’s possible for backscatter X-raying to produce photo-quality images of what’s going on beneath our clothes.

“This deployment follows a successful pilot phase, during which 46 imaging technology units were deployed at 23 airports and passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 per cent of the time,” according to the TSA. “It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers.”

The “optional” aspects of airport security, and just how effective the backscatter scanning technologies can be, are back in news following President Barack Obama’s vow to review airline security procedures in the wake of the failed attempt to blow up the Delta/Northwest Airlines jet. In that incident, Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to use explosives sewn into his underwear.

Currently, passengers who do not wish to utilise this screening receive an equal level of screening and undergo a “pat-down” procedure. Backscatter scanning has so far been done away from public security areas at airports, and TSA employees never see a passenger’s face during the scan; in most cases, they aren’t even in the same room.

Debate about the scanners has come up before in the years after 9/11, but their full implementation in airports has been delayed by privacy concerns. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) call them “virtual strip-searches” and have suggested that the potential for abuse and civil rights violations outweighs any security benefits.

Nineteen airports currently use the backscatter scanners as secondary screening machines with only a handful using them as primary sources to detect threats. The TSA’s intention to buy 150 more machines, coupled with the latest incident, raises more concerns with ACLU officials.

“There’s nothing new in this week’s re-examination of the pros and cons of whole-body scanning, despite the Obama administration’s promise to take a second look at current security measures”, according to Mike German, ACLU privacy counsel. “What's missing from the debate now is whether (the scanners) are more effective in detecting plastic explosives than any other technology. This seems sort of a knee-jerk reaction, German told the media.

A week before Abdulmutallab’s attempt, another privacy advocacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, sued the US justice department while attempting to gain access to images taken by the backscatter scanners and how they are used by the TSA. In June, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz introduced a bill that would ensure that backscatter or whole-body scanning would only be used if a traditional metal detector raised the need for more screening. This bill is currently pending an action in the Senate. Although privacy advocates may have been able to stall the introduction of such machines, there’s little doubt that with the renewed attempt to blow up an airliner, the technology would be adopted in the US and other countries.

The writer is a doctoral scholar, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and knowledge editor at Financial Chronicle