Eight airports to get full-body scanners

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is planning to introduce full-body scanners at eight Indian airports, MoCA Secretary Sameer Sinha said. “Machines have been delivered to three airports. The remaining five will get it soon,” he added. Simultaneously, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) is also collecting and analysing data from the devices. 

BCAS Director General Rajesh Nirwan on Thursday said trials of the scanners are being done at Bengaluru and Cochin airports, from where data and information such as how many alarms are generated are being collected. The gathered data will be assessed, he said. Cochin is not among the eight airports where full body scanners have been mandated. Details about the eight airports could not be immediately ascertained.
Union civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said, “After the preliminary report from flydubai, India will also act to further tighten the security aspect.” Based on the data collected by BCAS, algorithms for the scanners will be refined based on the outcome before deciding on introducing the scanners at the airports.

The idea of full body scanners was introduced a few years back, but due to various issues, including those related to passenger privacy, the technology is yet to be deployed at the airports.
In response to a query about the privacy concerns, Nirwan said that one issue was about the image that was coming out after scanning and now the scanners are being made ‘image agnostic’ as it will just be a model of a person. The technology will display on the screen if something suspicious is detected or where something is kept on the body and will show only that particular part.

Amid concerns that wearing certain ornaments and even mangal sutra could trigger alarms by full-body scanners, BCAS is working on refining the algorithms used by these scanners in close coordination with the vendors and original equipment manufacturers.

“What we are getting today in India is based on algorithms that have been designed for foreign markets. There are certain typical things that are on the body of Indian citizens or people living in India. So, those algorithms are also being continuously refined,” the BCAS DG said.

All such details will be available from data from the ongoing trials and accordingly, Nirwan said the algorithms will be refined. India is one of the world’s fastest-growing civil aviation markets and there are now 165 airports.