Body scanner plans divide EU countries

Europe appeared divided today regarding the need for airport full-body scanners today with some countries dismissing the need for tougher security measures.

Italy joined the United States, Britain and the Netherlands as nations who have announced plans to install the scanners following the Detroit airline bomber’s failed Christmas Day attack.

But as EU aviation security experts met to discuss scanners, Belgium’s secretary of state for transport, Etiennne Schouppe, described such enhanced measures as “excessive”, saying security requirements at European airports are already “strict enough”.

Spain too has expressed scepticism about the need for body scanners, and the German and French governments remain uncommitted.

Until now, the EU has allowed member states to decide on whether to use body scanners at airport checkpoints. In 2008, the EU suspended work regulating the use of body scanners after the European Parliament demanded a more in-depth study of their impact on health and privacy.

Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport has 15 of the scanners and the Dutch are to buy 60 more.

They are also fitting them with software that projects a stylised human figure onto the computer rather than the actual body image to address privacy concerns.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pressing for Britain to add more scanners than the few they have been testing at London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, Manchester and other sites.

In Italy, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said that full body scanners will be installed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport, Milan’s Malpensa airport and possibly in Venice within the next three months.

“The right not to be blown up on an aeroplane is a more important right” than privacy, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.

The US Transportation Security Administration, which uses 40 scanners throughout the United States, has announced plans to order dozens more.

Since the attempted Christmas Day bombing the EU has been re-evaluating its security regulations. Aviation experts now must assess whether body scanners can fit into EU legislation, officials said.

Any significant action on the issue would have to be taken by the European Commission, and approved by the EU parliament – a process that could take several months even if all member states agreed on the need.