In a move that is likely to get moral America up-in-arms, US airports are having security scanners that visually remove clothes as the traveller walks through installed.

The airports involved are Washington, New York and Los Angeles along with a few other major cities. Passengers will be selected at random and placed in glass booths while a three-dimensional image is made of their body beneath their clothes.

The booths close around the passenger and emit millimetre waves that go through cloth to identify metal, plastics, ceramics, chemical materials and explosives, according to the transport authority.

The reason that job applications to be an airport security guard will sky rocket is because the image created is so detailed, you will be able to se every bit and bob you?ve got?ehem?packed.

?People have no idea how graphic the images are,? Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said.

Don?t worry though, to protect passengers modesty (somewhat) when they are in the booth, their face will be blurred out.

Also, to stop over excited security officers from storing images and taking them home, the system does not save the pictures.

A TSA spokesman said: ?Once the transportation security officer has viewed the image and resolved anomalies, the image is erased from the screen permanently. The officer is unable to print, export, store or transmit the image.?

You can almost hear hackers cracking their fingers and warming up around the world.

The scan set is to replace the physical pat-downs currently widespread in airports but Lara Uselding, a TSA spokeswoman, said passengers were not obliged to accept the new machines.

“The passengers can choose between the body imaging and the pat-down,” she said.

The generally liberated Dutch have embraced the new technology though; Amsterdam’s Schipol airport has already started using the scanners.