Get set to bare all at airport security.
Kennedy and La Guardia airports will soon get body image scanners, which use X-rays or radio waves to detect weapons on 3-D images that look like passengers’ naked bodies.
Exactly when the machines will be set up is unclear — the Transportation Security Administration says only that they’ll be installed in the “coming months.”
Officials also aren’t saying how many machines will be installed at the airports, or whether they’ll be deployed in all the terminals.
No plans have been announced yet to install the machines at Newark. Right now, 142 are deployed at US airports, and the TSA plans to install another 450 before the year’s end.
At least you won’t have to take it all off before you take off, says the TSA, which believes the machines, costing up to $170,000 apiece, will screen passengers “quickly, and without physical contact.”
TSA promises screeners, working in rooms well away from the machines, will check each image briefly before it is deleted from the agency’s computers. The naked images won’t be seen by TSA personnel who lead passengers in and out of the machines.
Privacy advocates say the machines will be a nude awakening for modest New Yorkers. “This is a very intrusive search,” said Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has sued to limit the machines’ use.
At JFK yesterday, fliers were concerned. “It’s a computer — nothing is deleted. Before you know it, we’ll all have chips in us,” said Kira Ladel of Brooklyn. “But as long as I get to my destination safely, I’m fine.”