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An airport body scanner - Source: Reuters -
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The New Zealand Government will monitor Australia's plan to introduce full body scans at all of its international airports.
The technology's raised privacy issues and sparked controversy because of the revealing and personal nature of the scans.
Australia intends to make full body scans compulsory, meaning New Zealanders travelling to Australia will have to be scanned.
Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee says there are no plans to introduce similar measures in New Zealand, but that the Government will monitor what happens in Australia and how well it goes.
Brownlee says the Government has a clear idea of New Zealand's "risk profile" and current arrangements are satisfactory.
Trials of the scanners were held at Sydney and Melbourne last year and the roll-out at all international airports starts in July. It is part of a $36 million security overhaul.
The Australian Government says the scanners will show passengers on a screen as stick figures and will not show a person's sex.
Passengers with serious medical conditions will not have to go through the scan.
Body scanners were deployed across the US after a foiled plot by a Nigerian man who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear aboard a US flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009.
It led to complaints that the machines breach human rights and that the radiation emitted may leave long-term health effects.
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Post new commentGGN said on 2012-02-09 @ 17:00 NZDT: Report abusive post
I find compulsory full body scanning is not only an invasion of privacy but also degrading, for the fact that we are required to raise both hands as if we were surrendering. From now on I will avoid going to or transiting through Australia.