Answer
Wa `alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Thank you for your good question and concern about the affairs of your fellow Muslims.
The full-body X-ray scanners (also called nude-body scanners or full body security scanners) are being installed at various airports in the United States and Europe. Several human rights and religious groups have expressed their concerns and disapproval of such scanners on the grounds of violation of privacy and human dignity.
Answering your question, Dr. Wael Shehab, PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University and currently the Imam of the Downtown Toronto Masjid in Canada, states:
In fact, Islam pays due attention and consideration to security and safety concerns. It, also, respects people’s privacy and commands decency and modesty.
The general use of full-body X-ray scanners in many US and European airports have been under fire from human rights and religious groups, including Muslims and non-Muslims.
Many Muslim scholars and leaders all over the world have emphasized that a general and public use of such scanners is against the teachings of Islam, natural law and all religions and cultures that stand for decency and modesty.
Given the above, Muslim communities are advised, first of all, to cooperate with all human groups and faith communities to go through all legal possible channels to maintain people’s rights of privacy and respect for religious convictions. Alternate technological means should be sought to maintain passengers’ safety and security, which are well-established and considered in Islam, in a way that doesn’t violate people’s privacy or show their private parts before men and women. Muslims, as well other faith and human rights groups, should never give up insistence on their legal rights.
The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), for instance, proposed that instead of producing and displaying a picture of the body, software should be designed to produce only the picture of questionable materials on an outline of the body. Further, other technologies could be used that detect the presence of explosives without infringing on modesty.
In Islam, privacy and guarding the private parts should not be violated other than in terms of necessity. So, Muslim passengers could opt for a pat-down, when it is necessarily needed. The alternate provision of pat-down search (when needed) is generally appreciated by Muslim scholars and leaders and therefore recommended to Muslims to avail this option over the nude-body scanners.
Allah Almighty knows best.