Thaindian News

London, Jan 3 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The full body scanners are going to be deployed soon in the British airports, as the security of the airports gets scaled up because of the Christmas bombing attempt. “Now that the government has given the go-ahead, we will introduce full-body scanners as soon as practical,” a spokesman for BAA, owned by Spain’s Ferrovial, told Reuters.

“It is our view that a combination of technology, intelligence and passenger profiling will help build a more robust defense against the unpredictable and changing nature of the terrorist threat to aviation,” he said. He said that BAA, which operates six British airports, was going to introduce the full body scanners first at the Heathrow airport, as it is the busiest airport in Europe. He felt that after seeing the response, later they would go ahead and introduce it at the other airports too. He refused to divulge the schedule of their deployment at the airports and also didn’t discuss the financial aspects of the whole deal.

The Netherlands and Nigeria were quite surprised at the Christmas Day bombing attempt and they said last week they would use full-body scanners at airports after the failed attack on a US-bound plane by a 23-year-old Nigerian suspect who passed through both countries.

The British government also wants to scale up the airport security as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has ordered a thorough review of security measures at British airports. He also said that the scanners would be phased in. “In airports, people will see gradually being brought in the use of full-body scanners. They will see checks for explosive traces. That will be done on hand luggage. Transit passengers will also be checked”.