Transport written question – answered at on 20 December 2010.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has had discussions with the British Airline Pilots' Association on a potential opt-out for airline pilots from body scanning for the purposes of reducing cumulative exposure to radiation.
The Department for Transport is currently considering responses to a public consultation on the 'Code of Practice for the Acceptable Use of Security Scanners' in the UK. As part of this exercise, the Department consulted representatives from the aviation security industry, including the British Airline Pilots Association. A decision on the future use of security scanners will be made in due course. The Department for Transport commissioned advice from the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) on the effective dose of radiation from a back-scatter security scanner.
The HPA concluded that the effective dose from one scan is 0.02 micro Sv or less. This compares with the effective dose received for 1.4 minutes flying at airline cruising height of 0.12 micro Sv. The HPA recommends a dose constraint of 300 micros Sv/year to a member of the public from practices involving the deliberate use of ionising radiation sources.
Given the very significant difference between the effective dose from a back-scatter security scanner and the HPA's annual recommended dose constraint, the Department for Transport has not considered it necessary to commission research on the cumulative effects beyond this limit.
The HPA assessment was published on the DfT website on
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