Interior Minister: Current Generation Of Devices "Not Yet Suitable For General Use"

The German Interior Minister has decided that full body scanners are not ready for prime time, and will not deploy the devices at German airports for the time being. Field testing of two full-body scanners at Hamburg Airport, which started in September 2010, was extended once, and was completed on July 31 this year. About 809,000 passengers voluntarily submitted to this method of inspection for aviation security checks. The internal assessment of the ten-month test phase has since been completed.

German Ministry Of Interior Photo

Based on the test results, Federal Minister of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich has decided that, for now, full-body scanners will not be used at airports. “The Federal Police will continue to closely monitor developments in this area, and we hope to have devices soon which both satisfy our high security standards and are capable of handling large numbers of passengers,” the Federal Minister said.

Friedrich said in a news release that analysis of the data from ten months of practical operations showed that full-body scanners are in principle able to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of aviation security controls. They are a good way to further enhance the security of civil aviation, significantly speed up the inspection process and make it more convenient for passengers in future.

However, he said, it was also apparent that the technology is not yet to the stage where the available devices are suitable for everyday use. Most false alarms can be attributed to clothing features, such as folds. Even though in many cases follow-up checks can be limited to the area indicated by the scanner, there are too many false alarms overall which delay the control process.

For this reason, Friedrich said,  the current generation of body scanners "is not yet suitable for general use, despite their high rate of detection."

Full-body scanners may currently be used at European airports only for testing purposes. The European Commission is currently drafting an EU regulation allowing full-body scanners as a standard inspection method for passenger security checks.

FMI: www.bmi.bund.de/EN/Home/startseite_node.html