As per the reports, BCAS (Bureau of Civil Aviation Security) said that Body scanners will be made compulsory at all major airports in India.
Adding to the report it said that body scanners will be installed in 84 major airports in the country. The installation process will be done by March 2020. They also said that body scanners will be made compulsory in all airports in the next two years.
“All growth depends upon activity”, following the thought, the Indian travel industry is going through a lot of improvements to cater the needs and demands of the travelers and also trying to provide ease and comfort to some extent.
Recently they have started with a trial of face recognition system for passengers in Hyderabad Airport. There was also a news coming in about railway stations getting airport like makeover.
What is a Full-Body Scanner?
A full-body scanner is a device, which detects objects on a person’s body for security screening purposes, without making any contact with the person or physically removing cloths.
According to the technology used, the operator can see an alternate-wavelength image of the individual’s naked body. Or maybe cartoon representation of the body showing where the suspicious items are detected.
Significance Development In Technology
The currently used technology which is walk through and handheld metal detectors cannot detect non-metallic explosives and weapons. Which has become the cause of concern after various air-line bombing attempts in 2020.
This development is of significance as now with the use of this full-body scanner an alternate wavelength image of a person’s body can be seen and any suspicious non-metal objects can be detected easily.
According to circular, these scanners are based on millimeter-wave technology having non-ionising electromagnetic radiation. Which is safe for all passenger, including pregnant women.
How Will Body Scanners Work?
These scanners will replace the existing door frame metal detectors and handheld scanners with patdown searches of passengers to detect metal objects and weapons.
The 84 airports will follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) while using these body scanners.
There are about 105 operational airports in Indian, out of that 28 are classified as hypersensitive which includes big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and conflict areas like northeast, Jammu and Kashmir. The other 56 airports are categorized as sensitive.
As per the circular, these 28 hypersensitive and 56 sensitive airports have to install body scanners by March 2020 and remaining has to finish installation by March 2021.
According to circular, passengers will have to remove their jackets, thick cloths, shoes, belts and all metallic accessories before entering into this full-body scanner.
“Scanner shall provide image-free solution using a generic mannequin. Threats shall be graphically presented” the circular says regarding the privacy concerns raised due to machine-generated images showing full body contours of the passengers.
According to circular, this mannequin generated image will show a yellow spot, which will highlight the area in which further screening needs to be done.