Minister challenged over airport scanners

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) claims the devices risk breaching individuals' rights to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that air travellers would see the "gradual" introduction of body scanners at airports around the UK.

This followed the failed attempt to blow up a plane over the US on Christmas Day.

Supporters claim the move will enhance airport security, but those opposing the machines say the images are too intimate.

The EHRC has said that the proposals are likely to compromise privacy, especially around those such as disabled people, the elderly, children and the transgendered.

The organisation also wants to see the evidence for profiling travellers and who will be chosen.

Equal rights campaigners have aired concerns that the process will lead to discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity of religion.

EHRC legal director John Wadham said: "The Commission fully accepts the Government's responsibility to protect the safety and security of air travellers.

"The right to life is the ultimate human right and we support the Government reviewing security in the light of recent alleged terrorist activity.

"However, the Government needs to ensure that measures to protect this right also take into account the need to be proportionate in its counter-terrorism proposals and ensure that they are justified by evidence and effectiveness."

Privacy campaigners welcomed the EHRC's move.

Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, said the scanners are "another intrusion into our privacy in the name of protection, yet we know that they are not fail-safe."