Full body scanners break child porn laws....

[Mr Angry]

In an interesting development privacy campaigners, notably Privacy International, are pointing out that full body scanners (which the Government assure us will save more lives) are a step too far.

This could prove a crucial stage in the ongoing debate on (individual) privacy versus (personal, interpersonal, national, and commercial) security.

Love the implied assumption that everyone viewing such images are potential paedophiles or to be perverted in some way...

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Love the implied assumption that everyone viewing such images are potential paedophiles or to be perverted in some way...

Where? I missed it.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

[Gary L]

The offence is making the image.

Originally Posted by Gary L

The offence is making the image.

So apparently is taking any image of any child at any point which demonises all of us who just want an image of our own children in the swimming pool or at the school play if they happen to include any other child...

I think that Brass Eye did get it right after all..

Anyway I also love the way that the privacy angle is only for the benefit of children and not for adults..

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Anyway I also love the way that the privacy angle is only for the benefit of children and not for adults..

Privacy went out the window when CCTV appeared.

[nffc]

So they'll just strap their bomb on a little kid, knowing he/she won't be searched. Stupid. Either everyone is scanned or no-one is, IMO.

Originally Posted by Gary L

Privacy went out the window when CCTV appeared.

Missed the point entirely as usual..

[Peter_]

These full body scanners will be here to stay once installed and no one regardless of age or gender will be allowed to bypass this scanner, so if people do not want themselves or their children to be scanned then all they need to do is not fly.

I think security of the airlines is of paramount importance and completely overshadows any petty worries about civil liberties because of the requirement to be scanned.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Moldova

I think security of the airlines is of paramount importance and completely overshadows any petty worries about civil liberties because of the requirement to be scanned.

Playing devils advocate here - what if the ISP's were to introduce DPI on all communications over the web in an attempt to intercept / prevent the communication of instructions between terrorists?

[jonbxx]

Kids should be scanned like everyone else surely. My four year and 18month old kids were frisked by security after setting off the metal detectors at Glasgow airport last week. They were thorough but sensitive to any issues we had with this. We were happy to let them search them for the reasons stated above about secreting bombs on kids. It's for our safety after all.....

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Missed the point entirely as usual..

No, I think Gary has made a very good point. Full body scanners would have been absolutely unthinkable only 10 years ago (even if the technology had been available), but we have become the most spied-on country in Europe and the operators of our various CCTV systems have been playing a very canny PR game with us, releasing images of shocking criminality to news providers, and images of hilarious stupidity to ITV, in order to make us think that cameras are there for our safety and our entertainment and therefore beyond reproach.

The issue now may be child porn, but it has only been allowed to get this far because we've casually allowed our freedom to carry on our private business without 5 million TV viewers watching us, to be comprehensively eroded.

[downquark1]

Stupid law and a stupid scanner, which side to take? /headexplode

[Hom3r]

I think people are missing the point.

There will be a very very small minority of these scanner operators who have a unhealthy interest in children.

Plus they will only be looking at the screens for <30 seconds

So what do we do then?

Allow kids to be full body scanned, or have them rubbed down?

---------- Post added at 10:42 ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 ----------

Whats stopping some fanatic nutter taking his wife and kid on a plane, and putting the items on the kid.