International Law

Ontario commissioner calls for "privacy filters" on whole-body scanners

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario is calling for implementing privacy filters to mitigate part of the damage to privacy caused by whole body scanners that are appearing soon in an airport near you.

IPC - Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario Whats New Summary

Whole Body Imaging (WBI) technologies ? which have been described in the media as ?naked scanners? ? raise significant privacy concerns that must to be addressed, says Ontario?s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian. ?These technologies, which are being deployed as a voluntary passenger-scanning security measure in a growing number of airports around the world, pose a serious threat to privacy since they produce high-quality images of an essentially naked body beneath a passenger?s clothes.? But the risk to privacy can easily be mitigated through the use of a strong ?privacy filter.?

The Commissioner released a white paper entitled, Whole Body Imaging in Airport Scanners: Activate Privacy Filters to Achieve Security and Privacy, which outlines how the activation of privacy (or modesty) filters can reduce the amount of unnecessary personal details captured by WBI technologies.

• Executive Summary: Increase airport security without compromising privacy: Commissioner Cavoukian makes the case for the use of ?Privacy Filters?
• Paper: Whole Body Imaging in Airport Scanners: Activate Privacy Filters to Achieve Security and Privacy

Full post as published by The Canadian Privacy Law Blog on March 12, 2009 (boomark / email).