Security staff working at Heathrow Airport have reacted angrily to concerns they might use full-body scanners for lascivious purposes, according to Skyport.

One airport scanner told the industry paper that it was absurd to suggest security employees at UK gateways would have anything other than passenger safety on their minds.

“The idea that we are going to get kicks out of seeing a blurry grey image of people’s bodies is frankly offensive,” the airport scanner said in an interview.

“It’s about as sensible as saying the act of patting down a passenger is perverted. We are here to do a job. We have bombs and knives on our minds and that’s it.”

BAA confirmed earlier this month that it will be rolling out the controversial technology – which uses low-level X-rays to see beneath clothing – at all six of its UK bases.

The airport regulator’s announcement followed pledges by officials on both sides of the Atlantic that they will do everything possible to prevent a repeat of the Detroit terror scare – in which a Nigerian man managed to smuggle explosives through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

His device ultimately malfunctioned and the Northwest plane landed safely, but authorities have acted swiftly to ensure would-be attackers can never again breach airport security.

“The introduction of the scanners is a necessary additional measure in response to the heightened threat to the travelling public,” the Department of Transport said earlier this month.

“Their application to passengers, including children, with the proposed safeguards as to their use, is a proportionate response to the heightened threat … The use of scanners will be subject to a code of practice which is being developed by the Department for Transport and airport operators.”

Privacy campaigners had objected to the roll-out of full-body scanners on the grounds that they violent privacy laws enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

© Cheapflights Ltd (Creative Commons image: Timsdad / Wikimedia)

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