Dubai: All-seeing body scanners have been installed at Dubai ports of entry - including all three terminals at Dubai International Airport - on a trial basis to gauge whether the controversial new technology can better detect illegal or dangerous items on passengers, XPRESS can reveal.
According to sources, not all airport passengers are being screened and only those pulled from queues at the request of security officers are being subjected to the low-dose radiation screening.
Breach of privacy
The body scanner trials are being conducted by Dubai Customs at a time when scanning devices are being installed at airports around the world to head off incidents such as the failed Christmas Day airliner attack on final approach to Detroit airport last year.
The new scanners are controversial because they peer past clothing to reveal each passenger in the nude.
Religious and human rights groups say the use of such scanners violates moral and privacy standards, while some medical experts say exposure to what are called low-dose terahertz rays could pose serious hazards to health in the long term.
"It's a low-dose X-ray," said a source close to the project in Dubai, noting that physical searches only over clothing at airports may not always locate an explosive device.
The Christmas Day "underwear bomber", for example, stowed away his explosive device in his undergarments, material that was missed by airport security before he boarded. But Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's attempt to detonate the bomb was thwarted by passengers who tackled him in his seat.
"If a passenger is carrying illegal weapons or explosives, they will find it very difficult to hide them from this [screening] technology," the source said.
Dubai Customs did not respond to an official media request for comment by press time.
Meanwhile, a senior security official at Abu Dhabi airport told XPRESS that it was very unlikely that the body scanner technology would be implemented any time soon - it would be culturally opposed given that the technology sees through clothing.
Khan signs scans
Media reports say that Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan told British talk show Friday Night with Jonathon Ross that he had autographed full body scan printouts of himself for females who had somehow obtained the images. The full body scans of Khan were snapped as he passed through newly installed body scanners at Heathrow Airport.
Khan told Ross: "I was in London recently going through the airport [where] these new machines have come up. You've got to see them. It makes you embarrassed - if you're not well-endowed."
