Can TSA Body Scanner See My Tampon – What Will TSA See? 

You might be wondering if tampons can be detected by airport TSA body scanners if it’s that time of the month and you have to travel.

The good news is that because airport scanners cannot see inside the body, they are unable to detect tampons when passengers pass through them as they go through airport security.

Why Airport Scanners Are Unable to See Tampons?

Airport scanners use a range of techniques and technologies to safeguard travelers by inspecting both the fliers and their luggage.

These scanners include cabinet X-ray scanners, backscatter scanners, millimeter wave scanners, ionizing radiation scanners, and metal detectors.

The millimeter wave and backscatter scanners are two types of body scanners that are employed in airports.

Low-energy X-rays are used in backscatter scanners to reflect the X-rays back to the device.

The scanner would not pick up a tampon because they don’t penetrate the body; they only see through clothing, and they also don’t produce an anatomically accurate image.

In order to create an animated 3-dimensional image of the person and what is on them, millimeter wave scanners bounce electromagnetic waves off passengers.

A tampon won’t appear on a millimeter wave scanner because, like backscatter scanners, they cannot pass through body tissue.

Airport Scanners Can’t See Menstrual Cups Either

Airport scanners cannot detect whether a passenger is using a menstrual cup, just like they cannot detect the presence of tampons.

This is because of the same factors that prevent airport scanners from penetrating through the body.

Why Passengers Sometimes Get Pulled Aside When Wearing a Tampon

Menstrual cups and tampons are not detectable by airport scanners, as was previously mentioned.

The scanners use imaging to detect if there is something “abnormal” between your body and your clothes.

This “abnormal” thing could be something you never would have thought of, like sequins or stitching on your underwear, or a fold in your clothes.

After finishing this, a TSA officer will pull you aside for further inspection.

In other words, if a passenger is being pulled aside and is using a menstrual cup or tampon, it is a coincidence and something else between your body and your clothes has triggered it.

Airport Scanners Can See Tampons in Your Bags

Tampons cannot be detected while wearing a tampon by full-body airport scanners, but they can be seen inside your bags by the ones used to check your luggage.

But the way these airport scanners operate is a little different from what you might expect.

They operate by detecting the X-ray shadows that the items in your luggage cast.

Then, to distinguish between various objects, one makes use of the shape and darkness of the shadows.

When an airport baggage scanner scans your bag, it can roughly identify the materials the contents are made of as well as their density.

Can Airport Scanners See You Naked?

Actually, the only scanner that could see passengers in their undies was the backscatter scanner, which is no longer in use at airport security checkpoints. Backscatter scanner images were too revealing, explicit, or intimate to the point that TSA agents would share them, violating the privacy rights of passengers.

The millimeter scanner is a substitute scanner that is much safer than a backscatter scanner but only displays to agents a hazy, cartoonish-looking avatar of passengers, so you are not exposed. Even less attention is paid to your private body parts. With that representation, not even the agent can tell the difference between a man and a woman entering the scanner.

Put tampons in your fanny pack if you don’t want to be subjected to screening even when you’re on your period or choose TSA pre-check. Otherwise, if the scanner found something on you, such as tampons or menstrual cups, you might have to endure the tiresome process of searching.

If you are worried that you will be flagged and annoyed by the tap-down search, be sure to follow all the procedures when you leave your house and be ready. For example, avoid wearing body jewelry and take off items like rings, braces, watches, nose pins, and hair pins before the screening process.

Sometimes medical devices like pacemakers, knee or hip implants, sweaty armpits, or even higher-than-average body images can cause scanners to malfunction.

Conclusion

Overall, airport scanners cannot see tampons but can detect objects on your body; if security personnel have reason to be suspicious of you, they may tap down the search. Ask them to take you somewhere private so you can examine your intimate body parts since groping in public can be traumatic.

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