I'M SURE we’re all helpful sorts who would volunteer to assist the security services in testing new devices at airports. But the body-scanning machines being put through their paces at Melbourne airport reveal rather more of the scannee than you might expect. This could well be the future of airport security, and private it isn’t.



According to Cheryl Johnson, the general manager of Australia’s Office of Transport Security:

"It will show the private parts of people, but what we've decided is that we're not going to blur those out, because it severely limits the detection capabilities."



But Gulliver was particularly intrigued by another comment:

"The faces are automatically blurred and ... it's only a chalk-style outline, it's not as invasive as some of the other equipment that we've got.”



Passengers, it seems, are meant to be grateful the security officers will only be seeing their assets in blurred outline because, hey, their other machines would allow them to see a whole lot more.