Of course they do.
Despite claims by the TSA that electronic body scan images “cannot be stored or recorded,” some federal police agencies are in fact saving tens of thousands of images, according to a report by CNET News.
The body scanners, increasingly found in airports, courthouses and other places where security is high, use an assortment of technologies. These include millimeter wave scanners — in which the subject is harmlessly pelted with extremely high frequency radio waves which reflect a picture back to the device — and backscatter X-ray — which measures low-powered reflective X-rays to produce clearer body shots, shots that can reveal alarmingly precise anatomical detail.
According to CNET, the U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had saved thousands of images that had been recorded from a security checkpoint in a Florida courthouse.
The revelation comes at a tense time. Two weeks ago, when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said such scanners would appear in every major airport, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit to stop the device rollout. ((Rothman, Wilson. “Police Agencies Admit to Saving Body Scan Images.” MSNBC. NBC, 4 Aug. 2010. Web.))
Did anyone really believe them when they said they wouldn’t?
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