Diamond Body Scanners Could Work For Airport Security

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 5th 2010 at 8:01PM

Body scans have been in the news lately following the recent attempted terrorist attack over the holidays in which a Nigerian man aboard a plane headed to the United States had explosive sewn into his underwear. Full body scans are still relatively new when it comes to the travel industry and there are not a lot of scanners in place but the diamond industry has been working on scanning technology for years. Security to prevent diamond smuggling from mines has included scans for a long time. In many mining and polishing facilities workers are scanned on a regular basis.

DebTech, the research and development arm of De Beers, has announced that it will make its body-scanning technology available to airports. Engineering News Online reports that the Scannex X-ray body scanner, a machine created to find even the smallest diamonds concealed on someone's person, may be pressed into service as an airport security device. The scan is non-intrusive and scans take only about 10 seconds. DebTech marketing manager Nico van Zyl told Engineering News Online that it plans to market the machine as a body scanner to airports. Scanners cost around $500,000.

Tags: body scanner, BodyScanner, de beers, DeBeers, debtech, full body scans, FullBodyScans