I went through O'Hare recently, where they've installed a battery of these devices. The way they had it set up, it was used as the secondary screener for people who got called out for random searches.
Guess who got called for "random" searches in the machine? Pretty much every hot chick in line. Now, this observation was purely anecdotal, so take it for what it is. But the coincidence was not lost on me, or on anyone else in the line. It was disgusting behavior on the TSA workers' part.
I was at O'Hare this summer and noticed the exact same thing. All the dudes ended up going through the metal detector, and most of the girls went through the full body scanner.
Then I got really upset when I saw them selecting a young teenage girl to go through the scanner as well - perverts.
Gender doesn't necessarily determine sexual orientation; the machines are required to have facilities to store and transmit images; and besides, the mere power of forcefully suggesting someone submit to a strip search is titillation in itself, quite apart from viewing any resulting imagery.
The implication of the comment I was replying to was that it was a bunch of men wanting to look at naked women. I just didn't see how that could be if you were only allowed to observe someone of the same sex...
Considering that TSA screeners have been known to change policy, at will, whenever its convenient for them I doubt this policy is consistently enforced.
Supposedly they're not capable of saving or transmitting the pictures. I mean, obviously the machines are capable. But they're nerfed for TSA use. Supposedly.
This is the most ridiculous concept in the digital age. If it's being recorded by a computer, it can be copied. Hell, if it can be seen, it can be illicitly recorded. When you can buy tiny cameras from ThinkGeek that fit in the bridge of your glasses and can record VGA video for hours on a single battery charge, you can forget about pictures not being "saved".
And when the job is looking at naked pictures all day, what do you expect? I mean, who do you think seriously is seeking that sort of job in the first place?
Guess who got called for "random" searches in the machine? Pretty much every hot chick in line. Now, this observation was purely anecdotal, so take it for what it is. But the coincidence was not lost on me, or on anyone else in the line. It was disgusting behavior on the TSA workers' part.