Airport digital content scanner
A few days ago, I took a domestic flight from Haneda airport. While going through a relatively light security check, I saw this machine at the check point. Immediately, I went "Oh shit! No way" – a digital content security scanner. A couple years ago in China, Jan Chipchase and I were discussing the implications of a machine that would scan in few seconds hard drives (computer or other devices) for incorporeal illicit, stolen, harmful data. Consequently, it would also scan your personal pictures and files, company secret and confidential documents, etc. Would that machine changes your behaviour and the content on your laptop and music player? Yes. Would that be a new type of privacy invasion? No, since it is the same has having the customs rummaging through your suitcase at the airport. For the past 15 years, people had the liberty to carry around any type of incorporeal data. This will soon end.
False alarm, it is just an aluminium can / plastic bottle scanner.
