Manchester Airport in the U.K. announced on September 17 that it will not renew a program to test airport security scanners based on backscatter x-rays. The airport said it would not continue with the program because of European Union legislation excluding the technology.
Airport officials said they feel their trial of the so-called "naked" body scanners was successful, with the overwhelming majority of passengers preferring the scanners to frisking. The scanners use low-dose radiation to produce outlines of a passenger's body.
Instead of renewing the project, the airport will begin testing a new generation of "privacy-friendly" security scanners made by L3 that use radiofrequency-based millimeter-wave technology rather than low-dose x-rays.
