Larry has released a new study called “Commercial Air Passengers Struggle to Balance Desire for Privacy and Security”

…an overwhelming 79 percent of air travelers believe protection of their privacy rights is important. When asked to balance privacy and security when traveling with commercial airlines, however, 61 percent said security is most important, while only 18 percent said personal privacy is most important. And given a choice between a full-body scan or pat-down, 59 percent said they would prefer the scan, 18 would opt for a pat-down, while 23 percent said they were unsure.

I suspect the overwhelming 79 percent equate security with reducing the risk of a plane crash. Is a false choice being asked?

If you ask me to choose privacy and dying in a plane crash or “security”, I would choose the latter. This is similar to the CBS survey that said around 80% do not mind the scanners for security. They do not ask if they would go through scanners that provide no benefit but a lot of risk.

Kudos to the 20% who still choose privacy first. Even if I answer that I put my life above privacy, I still will not go through one of the controversial scanners.

Why? They do not improve security, and yet they add unnecessary risks. I accept going through the old metal detector but not the xray.

Here’s a better question for the survey:

If you had $330 million to spend on security, would you spend it on something known to reduce risk or would you spend it on a few hundred x-ray machines that give no known benefit and have a high risk of health issues, privacy breaches and reputation damage?

Spend the money more wisely. Even airplane maintenance or air traffic control would be a better use of those funds. Just $30 million for further study of x-ray machines would be more than enough to encourage further development, and then you would get the best of all worlds.