Full body x-ray to be tested at U.S. airport

A disturbing new screening system with the amazing and unsettling ability to strip the human body and reveal its most intimate curves in x-ray photographs is to be tested at an U.S. airport.

The federal screening system, which takes photographs like the one shown below, can detect concealed explosives and other weapons.



The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said it has found a way to refine the machine's images so that the normally graphic pictures can be blurred in certain areas while still being effective in detecting bombs and other threats.

The agency is expected to provide more information about the technology later this month but said one machine will be up and running at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport by the end of December.