Once again security theatre strikes Gatwick Airport in the UK. My walking through the metal detector set it off, prompting the lady supervising to indicate I had been “chosen” to walk through the new millimeter wave scanner. I fly regularly, and am reasonably certain I had no metal on my person, though I understand the metal detectors periodically alert on a random passenger as a control case. I’m now fairly used to asking to opt out of millimeter wavelength scanners, and did so – something they deal with regularly and simply in the US by performing a slightly more intrusive pat-down. I have no problem with this. Pat-downs are unlikely to have a cumulative medical effect.

This time, however, the lady informed me that once I had been chosen, there was no option to opt out, and indeed my only option was to leave the airport and not board my flight. She helpfully offered to call her supervisor, who confirmed that this was indeed the new law – a law enforced (or enacted – I forget his exact words) by the Department of Transport. No pat-down could be offered; no personal search could be considered; no alternative verification of security could be countenanced and my only option was indeed to not board my flight.

In between his assurances that this ‘new’ scanning technology was safe, and emitted less radiation than a mobile phone call (“one tenth of a second of a mobile phone call”), he announced that new regulations meant Gatwick airport was getting fully fitted with these millimeter wavelength scanners and that it would be impossible to avoid them in the future.

I explained that I quite wanted to get home and if being scanned was my only option for boarding I would certainly go through with it, but would greatly appreciate if he could provide me a method to formally note my objection, which he did.

Throughout, the staff of the airport were friendly, but unwilling to consider the possibility that this rule of passing through the scanner could be waived under any circumstance. Several of the comments regarding safety, the quantity of radiation emitted and vague references to it being ‘the law’ (without letting me know what law, though I didn’t press very hard) gave me the impression that they have been trained in security theatre rather than any meaningful understanding of how security works. I reeled in particular at the supervisor’s comment that people were not allowed to opt out if they were chosen since they then would be considered to have something to hide.