The new X-ray scanners make anything visible that is under your clothes (photo via BBC).

“Europe delays airport X-ray eye” was what I read on BBC News today. Subject was the plan of the E.U. to introduce full body scanners that scan the whole body of passengers at security checks on European airports. The plan is now delayed as the members of the European Parliament (MEP) voted for a further study on the implications for privacy and health.

Scanners that make the whole naked body of a passenger visible to the security staff – a sick surveillance idea that cannot be found even in the repertoire of George Orwell’s “1984″. Unbelievable in first hand is the fact, that passengers (=human beings with their own privacy) are confronted with machines that have such a deep impact on their privacy without being warned – if not by coincident the topic stumbles onto the front pages of newspapers, tv’s and websites.

Well, so our MEPs decided that the “implications for privacy and health” should be further examined. So what was the primary object of study? Which amount of electromagnetic or X-ray radiation is necessary for operating the full body scan? Or how easily the scanner is in handling? How much time it consumes to expose the passenger?

There is a huge problem with new technologies: machines are primarily or even only tested on their physical effects, but not on their implications for society and humanity. How does the new full body scanners effect people whose small breasts and penises, love handles or artificial anuses become visible? What happens if pictues from the scanners find their way into the internet (as we know it is a common thing that especially in the U.K. data get lost now and then)? How is human dignity affected by such measures?

When it comes to new technologies, the societal and human implications definetely have to be the first that need to be regarded. As an act of humaneness, there is no other possibility. In this case, however, it is not even a matter of social research, but a matter of justice: Full body scanners simply offend our basic rights.