Full-body scanners coming to New York airports

NEWARK, N.J.- Full-body scanners are coming to the New York-area airports in September.

Susan Baer, director of aviation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the scanners will be installed next month at Newark Liberty International, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.

It was not immediately known how many machines would be installed at each airport.

More than 40 U.S. airports now use the technology, which allows screeners to detect even nonmetal items concealed in clothing.

Baer said Thursday that there could be slightly longer waits at checkpoints, but said the process should take only 20 seconds or so.

Passengers who prefer not to be scanned can choose to be patted down and pass through a metal detector.

Full body scanners were tested at Kennedy in 2008, part of a nationwide effort to test their efficacy, according to the TSA.

The TSA announced last year it had purchased 150 full-body scanners using backscatter technology and would install them at airports nationwide this year.

Body scanners that peer underneath clothing have been available for years, but privacy advocates say they are a "virtual strip search" because they display an image of the body onto a computer screen.

The machines can scan for explosives and weapons hidden underneath clothing.

Privacy advocates have balked at use of the machines in the United States, saying that more needs to be done to protect the images.

Images are transmitted to monitoring screens separated from where the passenger is scanned, Davis said, faces are blurred and images cannot be stored.