U.S. body-scan technology used by Dutch is better than ours

WASHINGTON — After a Nigerian terrorist boarded a flight from the Netherlands to Detroit last Christmas with enough explosives to bring down the plane, officials at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport decided to build a better mousetrap.

So they installed more than a dozen full-body scanners capable of detecting metallic and nonmetallic materials, including explosives, gels, powders and liquids.

In the 11 months since then, Schiphol largely has avoided the privacy and safety uproar that surrounds passenger screening at U.S. airports.

Ironically, the Dutch can credit their relative success to good ol' American ingenuity: the kind that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now considering.

Unlike the backscatter-imaging devices that provide revealing body images and which have stoked concerns about radiation, the system at Schiphol uses radio waves to detect contraband. Woburn, Mass.-based L-3 Communications Security & Detection Systems claims on its website that the radio waves are "10,000 times lower than other commonly used radio-frequency devices."

If the software identifies a passenger carrying explosives, an outline of the problem body area is displayed on a generic mannequin figure instead of on the actual image of the passenger's body. The mannequin image, which appears on the operator's control panel, "can then be used by security personnel to direct a focused discussion or search," the company website reads.

About 385 body scanners already are in place in 68 U.S. airports. TSA expects to have 500 total in place by year's end.

About half are Rapiscan System's backscatter scanners, which emit X-raylike ionizing radiation, which in larger doses can cause cell changes leading to cancer.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has 14 scanners, all backscatter units.

L-3's "automatic-threat detection" system, dubbed "ProVision ATD," sells for $40,000 to $150,000 and doesn't use ionizing radiation or X-rays.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May ordered 200 less-advanced ProVision systems. These units don't feature the "automatic-threat detection" capability that can highlight parts of the body without generating actual images. But TSA has contracted with L-3 to develop software upgrades that could provide that capability for the agency's 200 units.

It's unclear how soon the updated software will be made available, but it should go a long way in eliminating the current controversy.

On Wednesday, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, TSA administrator John Pistole acknowledged the new target-recognition imaging was "the next generation."

"The only concern I have about that is there [is] currently a high rate of false positives on that technology, so we're working through that," Pistole testified. "But we are currently testing that today. We have been for several months."

He was responding to concerns voiced by three Republican senators that the DHS was slow to update its equipment. Sens. Susan Collins, of Maine, Jon Kyl, of Arizona and Saxby Chambliss, of Georgia, said in an April letter to Janet Napolitano, the DHS secretary, that the new technology "appears to be superior to the whole-body screening technology that is now being installed at U.S. airports."

According to TSA, airport security has detected more than 130 prohibited, illegal or dangerous items this year thanks to the new scanning equipment. And more than 99 percent of airline passengers choose the imaging technology over alternative screening methods.

But that hasn't stopped a growing backlash among passengers, pilots and privacy and safety advocates who feel the new imaging systems are intrusive, unhealthy and just plain uncomfortable.

Information from The Associated Press and Seattle Times staff is included in this report.