L3 Communications has been awarded a $165 million contract from the Transportation Security Administration for the indefinite delivery of an indefinite number of their ProVision millimeter wave security scanners. So, the TSA is sure that they’re going to get some of these, but they don’t know how many, or when. More than 200 ProVision scanners are currently deployed around the world, despite myriad privacy concerns. L3 had more than fifteen billion in sales in 2009, so this agreement doesn’t seem like that big a deal, financially.
Of course, no story about full body scanners would be complete without the requisite discussion of how they work to protect our privacy:
L-3’s ProVision offers multiple levels of privacy protection that can be customized to support customer-specific operational procedures. Security analysts see a 3-D black and white silhouette that makes it virtually impossible to determine the identity of the scanned individual. Also, images are viewed in remote locations separate from the checkpoint, so that analysts cannot see the passenger being scanned. Privacy is further ensured with options that allow for blurring of facial features.
Via BusinessWire