GUWAHATI: Physical frisking will be a thing of the past as all domestic airports across India will be installing full-body scanners. The technical aspects of the scanners will be announced soon by The Bureau of Civil Aviation and Security (BCAS), which will be followed by the installation of these machines after meeting norms, reported the Times of India.
Although this technology is new to India, it is widely used abroad, especially in the US. It is expected that after the Installation of these machines, the security check process will be sped up for airports lacking adequate infrastructure and it will also restrict the escalating manpower costs to provide security at the terminals.
These full body scanners are called ‘millimetre wave’ machines that bounce electromagnetic waves off the traveler to provide an animated image where a suspicious item might be located.
The Central Industrial Security force (CISF) that handles security at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, revealed that as per a trial session held in December of 2016, the machine was not able to adapt to the Indian way of dressing and provided false alarms when a woman wearing a sari passed through it. The scanner also found it difficult to detect objects concealed in people’s footwear.
Post these trials, several specifications were made and modified. The BCAS chief, Kumar Rajesh Chandra said that the authorities will be issuing specifications and regulations for active and passive scanners by early 2019. These scanners will also be customised so that they can penetrate layers of clothes, such as the chunnat (front fold) of a sari, lungi and pallus.
Full transmission scanners haven’t been cleared by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board yet due to the amount of radiation they expose fliers to which is very harmful, unlike the safer active and passive millimetre wave body scanners, which will be installed soon.
