Talk:Millimeter wave scanner

Health concerns?
Does this technology pose the same cumulative cancer risk associated with the previous "backscatter X-ray" devices that the (United States) Transportation Security Administration had proposed? 66.171.171.99 (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Good question--the newspaper articles don't seem to even bring this issue up, let alone explore it in detail. Badagnani (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No, RF waves are non-ionizing. -- Beland (talk) 20:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ionizing radiation has a wavelength of less than 0.2 mm. -- Crato (talk) 20:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The paper cited to support the link with cancer does not support the entry's text. I have changed it better reflect the conclusions of the review paper. Relevant statement in particular are:

"Thus, it is clear that RF radiation is not genotoxic and therefore cannot initiate cancer"

"...the majority of such studies have shown that chronic exposure of animals to RF in the range of 435 to 2,450 MHz did not significantly alter the development of tumors in a number of animal cancer models"

With regards to the few studies that did show accelerated tumor growth with RF exposure:

"...the same acceleration of skin cancer development and reduction in survival occurred in animals exposed to chronic confinement stress in the absence of RF exposure, suggesting that the RF effect could possibly be due to a non-specific stress reaction."

Given these statements, even the revised wording should still be generous to the risk side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulmkgordon (talk • contribs) 16:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * By my reading, this states conclusively that that radio waves are not genotoxic. Special:Contributions/97.126.57.63 has changed a conclusive, referenced statement ("is not") to be a speculative statement ("is not believed to be"). If someone could please provide a reference or reason for the apprehension in this statement below I would like to add it to the article. Otherwise, there is a large body of science which I am aware that is comfortable in such a conclusive, referenced statement, and I should like to change it back shortly. nakomaru (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * For the stated reasons I have reverted this change. nakomaru (talk) 19:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I keep looking of examples of why my students shouldn't use Wikipedia as a source in their academic writing, and this is perfect. Keep it up Nakomaru! Great work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.222.187 (talk) 13:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the material refuting DNA damage should be more carefully worded, or omitted. Eric Swanson's work (cited) has only been on the arxiv for seven days, and, worthy though it may be, has still not seen peer review or publication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.109.112 (talk) 03:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion any material on DNA damage should be emitted, period. Its referring to a frequency range that the scanners dont use. (1-10Thz) so why is it even mentioned. Sooner people realize Terahertz is a measurement unit(like a mm or cm) not an all encompassing term for a type of beam. Its em radiation and so is visibe light. Comparing neighboring frequency ranges for health effects is ludicrous. You might as well say light bulbs are dangerous because a neighboring frequency to visible light - xrays gives you cancer. If its not the same frequency range its not reliant! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.136.57 (talk) 13:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I feel that the dna damage is misleading as the study cited seems to say the opposite. http://iopscience.iop.org/1063-7818/44/3/247 -- К wiztas  (talk) 09:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I added some more in-depth explanations and peer-reviewed sources about mm-wave radiation and its interactions with biological systems. One particular unregistered user keeps randomly inserting statements about cancer into this section. He/she never provides a source but seems quite insistent that this wavelength is a cancer risk. The relevant literature, to the best of my knowledge, only mentions thermal effects. From a theoretical standpoint, there's no reason to even suspect that mm-waves would cause cancer, but because of their increasing ubiquity, safety studies are numerous, thorough, and if there were a reason to investigate mutagenicity of mm-waves, it would have been done already, trust me on that. Possible secondary injuries due to the products of the primary (thermal) injury are mentioned in some papers and further study is recommended, but nowhere do they go as far as to suggest carcinogenesis. This is not some sort of conspiracy. It's simply the current state of the science. If epidemiological studies confirm a cancer link in the future, then fine, reference that and add it to the article. But until then, it seems premature, misleading and alarmist to insert warnings of the sort "It may cause cancer" or "It can cause cancer by other means" into the text, especially when no expert/reliable/peer-reviewed source says so. I've been undoing those edits but getting tired of it now, so requested partial protection of the page. Bartdi (talk) 22:54, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The page currently says "the WHO (World Health Organization) IARC (International Agency for Research in Cancer) in 2011 classified non-ionizing radiation such as millimeter waves or microwaves, as 2B, which means possibly carcinogenic to humans." That link is all about mobile phones, not millimeter wave scanners, and any conclusions are based on a different set of assumptions about field strength and proximity to the body. --WBTtheFROG (talk) 15:24, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the link is about phones, and not about mmWave scanners. Stickee (talk) 23:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Shahrukh Khan
I have removed the reference to the Shahrukh Khan publicity scam. It is simply not true. If somebody wants to write a factually correct account of it, fine. Please do not just reinstate the untruth. Read this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/10/bollywood_star_scan/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.156.142.95 (talk) 12:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, did not check this talk. Have restored the edits. rams81 (talk) 04:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * A spokeswoman simply said it could not be true, and you believed her??? (Cyberia3 (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC))

Privacy?
This article skips the most important aspect of this technology: How much is our privacy invaded? How much detail of our naked bodies does this technology show? What is exposed? What is stored? Is any image kept which could be used to identify the person, i.e. face and body in one image.

The most useful thing for this page would be a high resolution (high pixel count) example image. That would allow readers to form their own opinion based on fact.

Nick Beeson (talk) 13:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A definite lack of privacy from some perverted staff (Cyberia3 (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC))


 * I came across this video today . It seems to show real footage from the operator room, including full, 'real-time' views of faces, genitals, everything.  There seems to be a tool in the program that lets them scroll around a reduced image, getting a close up of any area they want (the video shows female nipples, and male 'baggage').  A few times, you can see the image exposure change dynamically, which suggests that the may be able to control the apparent 'depth' of the image. Although all of the TSA releases show blurred faces/etc, this seems to be mainly for tastefulness and/or propaganda purposes, and doesn't appear to be a constraint to the officers themselves.  Based on the video, there seems to be little difference between this tech and 'standing in a room naked while someone watches through one-way glass'.  I noticed that this info conflicts with the article in a few places, but given the lack of detail published in general (many of the TSA screens are fabricated 'simulations' using models, ordinary cameras, and img software), this seems to be the only plausible video footage out there.  Ghos  t wo  03:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I wonder if there will be a porn site showing body scanner images soon. You know it's only a matter of time. There could be some seriously embarrassed male celebrities, if it is revealed that the size of their, ahem, equipment is smaller than average. Hanxu9 (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Redundant?
The two paragraphs about the trial run in Canada seem identical. I'm going to merge soon them soon if no one objects. 141.149.134.99 (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Terahertz Radiation
"...Terahertz radiation (which is a 1000 times higher in frequency than mm waves)..."

A 1 mm wavelength is 300 GHz, which would make the lower end of Terahertz radiation less than 10 times higher frequency than mm waves. Or is there some other convention being used here that I'm not aware of? Perhaps this should say "3 to 300 times higher in frequency than mm waves?"--Tedd (talk) 20:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Terahertz has two meanings. As a unit of measurement and as a technology or frequency range. In my view the use a unit of measurement as a technology is wrong. Visible light is 400-500THz in frequency but that is not classed as terahertz. mm wave scanners operate at 30Ghz (0.03Thz) so in fact 100 times lower in frequency than the work reported on DNA (1-4Thz). Go 100 times further and your into to red light. So Thz is as far from mm waves as Thz is from visible light. Hardly worth mentioning heath effects of frequencies so far apart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.136.57 (talk) 13:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with above. Why is it relevant to talk about terahertz radiation in this sense. I can understand comparing Millimeter wave scanners and Backscatter X-ray scanners. In the case of mentioning terahertz radiation, however, I feel that this is misleading by bringing up the subject of ionizing radiation being harmful, while the Millimeter wave scanner does not emit such radiation.Mikaman (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * THz is not ionizing either (the only mention of ionizing radiation is distinguish it from mm waves which are non-ionizing). The study itself only concludes that their idealized simulation of a certain wavelength/intensity THz wave resonate enough to destroy certain molecules. There's no experimental study at all, and a later simulation shows that, with reasonable physical assumptions, no such resonance exists. I have removed this paragraph on the grounds of it being a simple simulation whose results were refuted by a more robust simulation, and that mm wave scanners use 20-30 GHz waves and the study uses 3600 GHz waves, with very likely much different intensity. nakomaru (talk) 09:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Alternative to being stripped by a scanner
A body search that amounts to a sexual assault, even for little kiddies and. The President who backs these scans and body searches of course does not have to suffer them. Neither does his family. (Cyberia3 (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC))

Marshals have no relation to TSA
...other than being agents of the US government: "TSA claimed that the images captured by the machines were not stored. Despite this the U.S. Marshals Service admitted that it had saved thousands of images captured from a Florida checkpoint.[9]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.40.134 (talk) 01:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Extraneous information
"One of the most publicized millimeter-wave scanner systems is the Tadar system developed by Farran (now owned by Smiths Detection). The name "Tadar" was inspired by the Brazilian Tadarida bat.[4]". These two sentences add little to my understanding of the topic and seem out of place--especially for the topic overview section. Further, there are systems by other companies that are also widely publicized. If we need to "name names", maybe it can be done later in the article. Slumberbus (talk) 03:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Are these scanners useless?
See this report from the BBC:. Perhaps it should be mentioned in the article. Also, Manchester Airport is in the process of installing these scanners (active, I think. Not sure about the ones in the prison). Maybe we shouldn't be flying from Manchester! 141.6.11.13 (talk) 22:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Differentiated between X-ray and millimeter wave technology?
Just read http://www.schiphol.nl/web/file?uuid=d7456d66-adce-4ae6-8e11-fe990a649e22&owner=354264e6-5aa4-4b86-b193-277df4b90afb and wanted to look up some more re millimeter wave technology. Yet I get the impression there's a difference between how Wikipedia describes it (which sounds more like the Full Body Scanner) re how Schiphol Amsterdam Airport and the Dutch customs service describe it. Anyone who can pitch in here? 77.174.128.18 (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

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Misleading concern section
The concern section discusses issues with a subset of the broader array of body scanning equipment. Most of the concerns listed in that section were specifically with Rapiscan's backscatter X-Ray system, not with millimeter wave systems. - Keith D. Tyler &para; 21:48, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Serious problems with this article
I suggest that editors for this article and similar topics strive to understand how radiation health effects are evaluated. What matters in the health effects section of the main WP page is what the biological system perceives, regardless of the origin or generator of the waves. This is well understood in ionizing radiation safety. For the benefit of whomever may be reading these comments, it is important to explain that we speak of radiation simply in the general technical sense, as in radiation from the sun and a radar antenna, and not in the sense of radioactivity or ionizing radiation such as X-rays, alpha, beta particles and gamma rays.

It is improper to discount a reference on radiation from a mobile phone simply because its waveform may be different. This would be akin to stating that an article about X-rays from the sun cannot be referenced in an article about X-rays for medical use (the waveforms are different). Yet, commenters in the Wikipedia page on airport scanners said of such a reference: “That link is all about mobile phones, not millimeter wave scanners, and any conclusions are based on a different set of assumptions about field strength and proximity to the body. --WBTtheFROG (talk) 15:24, 7 August 2017 (UTC) .“ A compliant editor replied:  “Agreed, the link is about phones, and not about mm Wave scanners. Stickee (talk) 23:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)”

Not at all. The subject matter of the reference was not about mobile phones, or the “field strength and proximity to the body” as can be easily seen in these two excerpts: “IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer] -has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)” and “reviewed the carcinogenic potential of radiofrequency fields, as from mobile phones”(emphasis added.)

The reason why the original article edit was improper is because the frequencies used by mobile phones in the period studied by WHO/IARC (WHO refers to the World Health Organization) never operated at millimeter wave frequencies. The article editor or commenter added his/her own words: “The WHO…classified non-ionizing radiation such as millimeter waves or microwaves…” No. It didn’t. It referred specifically to “radiofrequency” EMF. This part of the spectrum (RF) ends at 3 GHz while MMW begins at 30 GHz.

There are multiple problems with the article references.

Several comments in the Talk page and statements in the article are incorrect and not supported by any citations. There is no support for the statement: “It should be noted however that the energy density required to produce thermal injury in skin is much higher than that typically delivered in an active millimeter wave scanner”. There is no reference which provides values or the order of magnitude of the energy densities, much less which level causes thermal injury. None of the abstracts of the references under related to this statement mentioned energy density or thermal injury in the skin. (localized heating is mentioned). I continue to find in WP statements of fact in the main pages without references and in some cases statements that are the opposite of what the reference actually states.

References contain prominent and relevant points which are omitted in the WP piece (whether this is due to bias, I can’t say); e.g. reference (17) plainly states "safety is difficult-to-impossible to prove using publicly accessible data" and “…peer-reviewed evidence is needed that the deployed units (not just the prototypes) meet widely-accepted safety standards.” The omission of these statement is suggestive of editorial negligence, as such statements are uber-important in paragraphs related to “possible health effects”.

The text added to reference (19) is troublesome: "...the majority of such studies have shown that chronic exposure of animals to RF in the range of 435 to 2,450 MHz did not significantly alter the development of tumors…” misleads toward a “safe” bias as this frequency range is outside the scope of this WP article (MMW begins at 30 GHz), and therefore lacks relevance. The MMW literature indicates an increase in tumor growth from certain MMW irradiation: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/884201?arnumber=884201

Likewise, reference (22) is about Terahertz and therefore NOT relevant in support of the paragraph that cites it (since MMW operates in the Gigahertz band).

Talk-page statements such as the following (Bartdi) should raise a warning flag: “if there were a reason to investigate mutagenicity of mm-waves, it would have been done already, trust me on that” (emphasis added)…. No, that’s not the way it works. If it were so, then the idea of cell phone radio frequency causing cancer would have been settled decades ago, as it turns out, it is NOT. I am not saying that MMW cause cancer; rather, that such a definite statement assumes an editorial privilege that is not merited by virtue of simply claiming it by right.

The same user asserted, authoritatively: “If epidemiological studies confirm a cancer link in the future, then fine, reference that…” Really? “Epidemiological studies” are exactly what percent of the Wikipedia-cited references in the “health effects” section? What is the WP rule that limits references to only epidemiological studies? Why do I need your permission to choose my references? That is the sort of editorial fascism that keeps article quality poor and dissuades potential contributors from helping.

To his/her credit, user Bartdi used the disclaimer in his comment: “The relevant literature, to the best of my knowledge, only mentions thermal effects.” To improve the commenter’s scope of knowledge, I provide a NIH study from 1998 which mentions non-thermal effects: “Many reported MMW effects could not be readily explained by temperature changes during irradiation.”  (emphasis added). Ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9771583

Another, from the IEEE: “There is a substantial number of studies showing biological effects of microwaves of extremely high-frequency range [i.e., millimeter waves (MMWs)] at nonthermal intensities”. (emphasis added). Ref: http://www.avaate.org/IMG/pdf/IEEE_MTT_paper.pdf

In the main Wikipedia article page, we read: “There is no clear evidence to date of harmful effects other than those caused by localised heating”. The use of semantics is useful in leading perceptions. What exactly is “clear” evidence? Can evidence be “unclear” and what would be an example of that? When you do research, it may yield indications regarding your hypothesis, or it may be inconclusive. This is the domain of statistics, not the opinion of Wiki “experts”.

In 2012, the CIA published translated Russian studies into the effects of millimeter waves (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mX1fSrTzvWIxJBOC0Q8POLD0XhBQSpDv/view). U.S. researchers in their published studies have made numerous references to the early Russian studies. These studies, which included human subjects, show non-thermal effects of millimeter waves in organs beyond the skin, including blood, bone marrow, liver, kidneys, heart, and brain. Some of the most significant effects:

"...studies conducted in humans and animals revealed that millimeter waves caused changes in the body manifested in structural alterations in the skin and internal organs, qualitative and quantitative changes of the blood and bone marrow composition and changes of the conditioned reflex activity, tissue respiration, activity of enzymes..."

"...irradiation of animals by millimeter waves caused changes of the processes of...the liver, kidneys, heart and brain..."

"...the state of health of 97 persons working with generators of the millimeter range...The data confirmed ...changes of the indicators of protein and carbohydrate metabolism and disturbances of immuno-biological reactivity and of the blood system..."

Many studies report changes in different organs, cells and organisms, from irradiation to MMW, depending on the particular experiment settings. It is true that sweeping conclusions are difficult, given the parameters of each experiment, which have a wide variation.

The reasonable conclusion is that the issue of public health risk from MMW scanners has not been resolved. Even Wikipedia itself provides reference for this conclusion: Its article on Backscatter X-rays includes this quote, helpfully:” ‘I am very interested in performing a National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements study on the use of millimeter-wave security screening systems,’ said Thomas S. Tenforde, council president. However, no long-term studies have been done on the health effects of millimeter wave scanners.”[59]

The need for more specific research on the potential hazards of this irradiation has been highlighted in multiple initial studies, e.g. in this IEEE 1986 article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B14R6QNkmaXuZ1JqNHpYNWRWdjg/view; “we find that the potential damage to the eye should be evaluated because there is a specially high absorbed dose (SAR) in the cornea. To date, the results of a comprehensive evaluation, if completed, have not been published. “ (There is a 1979 study which tested 60GHz CW at 10mW/cm (sic) and found “no detectable” ocular damage. Also, another study examined genotoxicity to human cornea cells.) 66.135.160.213 (talk) 15:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Agree that there's major issues with the article about sources and how it's lacking BASIC info like typical frequency and power of EMF used.


 * HOWEVER It's definitely true that MMW scanners produce vastly less EMF than phones. 5G MMW transmission from device is .1 to .3 watts. Scanners are around 7E-5 watts, ~1500x less. At the body it's probably another 10x less. And the exposure time is again many thousands less.


 * It's completely absurd to seriously consider health impacts when billions of people are practically attached to cellphones Quuxman (talk) 11:48, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

What about frequency and power level??
Why isn't this mentioned at all? Here's a source (page 11 footnote 5) for a ProVision system used in the US that emits 70 microwatts. This means (picowatts / cm^2) over the body, amazing!

I think this should be added in technical details section immediately after frequency range is given: generally 30-40ghz, 7-10mm (I've yet to hear about a terahertz range airport scanner, why is this mentioned at all?)

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/24936/chapter/3#11 Quuxman (talk) 11:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)