Amsterdam considers using body scanners on the street [June 27, 2012]

Are concealed weapons such a big deal in Amsterdam? According to the Parool, the city council is looking into the possibility of sanctioning the use of body scanners during street stop and search campaigns - a bizarre idea in itself but then little surprises me any more about the increasingly repressive nature of Dutch policing.

The paper says the scanners would be used in addition to body searches which have been sanctioned in large parts of the city.

D66 councillors have already called for the research to be halted, saying it is an infringement of privacy. D66 don’t like the stop and search system either. ‘The police don’t need to know everything about Amsterdammers,’ local party leader Jan Paternotte says in the Parool.

A spokesman for mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the scanners are part of a wider discussion on reducing illegal weapons and using them would mean 'innocent people' would not be searched.

This would appear to mean that only dodgy types would be made to go through the scanner. Quite how they can reconcile that with human rights and anti-discrimination legislation I'm not sure. I don't think it would be legal to pick and choose who to effectively look at naked.

Body scanners have been used at Schiphol airport since 2007. They’ve tried to get me to go through them, when I’ve set of the metal detector but I’ve always refused.

There is something very exposed about standing in a glass cubicle with your arms up in the air while a scanner checks your body for something illegal.