According to THISDAY Newspaper - The 3D full-body scanners procured for thorough body check of passengers at the nation’s major airports for security reasons are now being abused by security officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). They use the machines, installed in the wake of the Farouk AbdulMutallab affair, to watch the naked images of female passengers for fun.
The controversial body scanners have been dubbed “e-stripping” in advanced countries because of the way they expose the nakedness of those being screened.
THISDAY discovered that during off-peak periods, the aviation security officials, who are trained on the use of the scanners, usually stroll from the cubicle located in a hidden corner on the right side of the screening area where the 3D full-body scanner monitors are located.
They do so to catch a glimpse of some of the passengers entering the machine and immediately go back to view the naked images, in order to match the faces with the images since the faces are blurred on the monitors while passengers are inside the machine.
The face that appears on the scanner’s monitor is usually blurred so that the operator viewing the full body will not recognise who passes through the machine.
But by coming out to see the passenger in person and then going back to see his or her image, the objective of protecting the privacy of the passenger has been defeated.
But now the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) in separate statements faulted THISDAY's report, saying that the frame involved in the screening process would not make it possible for the monitoring officer to scan and at the same time come out to identify the person accessing the 3D full body scan.
"If you look at where those scanners are located, it is unreasonable for anybody to leave what he's doing at the screening and rush to compare the body or the face of the individual that pass through the machine. When you are monitoring, you can't see the person's full body, what you see is blood. It is when the person has some strange objects that the machine signals the part of the body where the objects are located. The monitor is 10 metres from the screening point and there's no way one can leave the control room to the screening center to go and look at anything. So the reports are not true" Said Mr. Akin Olukunle, GM, Public Affairs unit, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
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