Explosive armpit sweat? Confused airport body scanners put on hold in Germany
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Those who are planning to visit Germany and are of a sweaty disposition may have been saved from a sticky situation – for the time being – after the country decided to delay installing body scanners at airports on discovering that the devices were prone to repeat false alerts. Trials of two machines showed that the scanners had a 49% false alarm rate; among the errors made was confusing underarm body sweat with concealed bomb chemicals, according to an article on euobserver.com. The German interior ministry is now calling for an improvement in the software used in the scanners. Full body scanners are used in airports in the US, the UK and the Netherlands.