Full body scans at YVR and seven other airports across Canada are a knee-jerk reaction from the Conservative government trying to take advantage of security hysteria created by the foiled Detroit bombing, privacy watchdogs claim.
Transport Minister John Baird and Rob Merrifield, Minster of State, announced yesterday scanners, which generate images of a passenger's body nude, would be installed at Canada's eight busiest airports starting this month.
"Given the recent terrorist incident Dec. 25, our government is accelerating its actions to protect air travellers," Baird said in a statement.
The scans are so precise security guards will have a clear depictions of a male's genitals to a female's breast implants.
Passengers will have the choice of a body scan or a full body pat down.
B.C. Civil Liberties Association policy director Michael Vonn described the investment in 44 machines, at a cost of $250,000 each, as a fiasco fraught with peril.
"We can expect to see these chain of events: Introduced to the public with all the privacy protections up front and then those gradually stripped away, like your clothing," she said.
Vonn added there is more trouble ahead if the government doesn't have a clear policy on scanning children under the age of 18.
"That the notion that little Tiffany needs to be viewed naked by the nice man in the back room before she can get on the plane is outrageous," she said.
According to documents obtained last fall by QMI Agency under Access to Information, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority recommended Transport Canada accept the scanner for use despite a seven-month trial at Kelowna International Airport, which showed the machine didn't meet the security agency's expectations.
