Full Body Scanners Coming to Louisville, Lexington Airports

Full body scanners will soon be arriving at Lexington’s Bluegrass Airport and Louisville International Airport. Jim Fotenos, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, says the biggest change for passengers will be requests that they remove all items, metallic and non-metallic, from their pockets before passing through. Fotenos says the worries about radiation exposure that surfaced when full body scanners began being widely used two years ago have been addressed with newer scanners.

"The type of technology we are deploying in both Louisville and in Lexington in the next few weeks is millimeter wave technology. Now that doesn’t lose radiation, it uses electromagnetic or radio waves. Harmless energy; its about ten thousand times less than what is emitted by a cell phone."

The new high-tech equipment will not produce individual body images of passengers either. Instead, areas of concern will be highlighted on a generic body outline.