Airport full-body scanners 'inevitable'

 

Jose Blanco - the Spanish Minister for Development, has held a meeting in Washington with Ray LaHood, his Opposite in the USA, and made a statement afterwards that the implementation of full body scanners in airports is ‘inevitable', provided that personal privacy is safeguarded.

The meeting was held in order to discuss phase 2 of the ‘open skies' agreement between the United States and Europe, and the US secretary of security Janet Napolitano was also in attendance.

The Minister commented that after the attempt to bring down a plane over Detroit at Christmas several security faults had been detected both in Europe and the United States, and he had given an undertaking to work together to bring a more efficient response to the ‘global threat'. He said rather than any blame the meeting had served to show the wish for cooperation.

He said that new technology and body scanners were inevitable despite their proposed use being rejected by the European Parliament in 2008.