December 22, 2007
Prisons call in body scanner to defeat mobile phone smugglers
The Government is to consider installing electronic body scanners which can detect mobile phones and metal weapons hidden inside people’s bodies into every jail in England and Wales. Times Online reports.
"David Hanson, the Prisons Minister, said today that putting the £6,500 ($12.900) scanner in every jail would help to counter the growing number of mobile phones being smuggled into prisons.
The body orifice security scanner (Boss) is a mobile chair with three sensitive sensors which can detect metal items as small as a pin or paper clip when they are hidden on or inside an individual.
A prisoner sits on the chair and the machine issues a red alert when an object is found within or around the body. Mobile phones are frequently smuggled into jails in body orifices.
... Mr Hanson said that the Boss chair offered a better way of dealing with mobile phones than trying to instal a jamming system as this would also effect the use of mobile phones in nearby houses and on roads in the vicinity."
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