[286] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] TSA's Voyeurs Return: Enjoy Your Flight
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Fri Oct 12 12:41:22 2007
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Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:08:45 -0700
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TSA's Voyeurs Return: Enjoy Your Flight
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000314.html
Greetings. The Transportation Security Agency is now testing its
latest "security" toy at various airports, another full body scanner
(a millimeter wave device this time) that takes detailed naked
photos right through passengers' clothes. And naturally, we're
hearing the usual promises that there's no privacy invasion. The
images aren't saved says TSA. The personnel viewing the images
aren't at the security checkpoints, and faces are obscured, we're
assured.
Sorry gang. TSA can promise whatever they want, but these sorts of
privacy claims are utterly worthless. We have no way to know what
the machines are really doing in terms of storing or transmitting
even unaltered images. We've heard the same kinds of promises
before regarding law enforcement use of CCTV systems, and they've
been turned into voyeuristic tools nonetheless.
Having the viewer of the images at a remote location doesn't prevent
abuse. All it takes is a cell phone camera and it will be no time
at all before copies of the more "entertaining" body images (even if
theoretically "anonymous") are pasted up in people's offices, homes,
or circulating on the Net.
The abuse is real even if the naked images aren't labeled by name.
And odds are that enterprising folks will find ways to associate
names and images somehow as well -- the market for celebrity-related
goodies is so intense that this is bound to happen. These body
image scanners, like others that TSA has been experimenting with,
are just another privacy abomination masquerading as security. The
only good thing about this new one is that unlike TSA's other pet
peeping tom body scanner, it's not using x-rays. Whoopee.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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