This paper deals with the passenger screening procedure at airports. A survey on the acceptability of security scanners was conducted in France in July 2012 with a sample of 458 air travellers. Acceptability was operationalized in terms of behavioural intention to undergo scanning if such scanners were implemented at French airports. The great majority of the respondents would choose to pass through a security scanner whatever the representation used by the system to display potential hidden objects (a fuzzy image of the body of the passenger or a generic avatar). Despite their possible lack of knowledge on the efficiency of the technology, most of the respondents trusted security scanners to detect hidden explosives. Finally, the majority of the respondents did not perceive such scanning as a breach of fundamental rights. By way of discussion, a model is proposed which expresses that acceptance would emerge from a cognitive compromise between expected benefits, accepted risks, and tolerated constraints. The compromise would be shaped by trust and perceptions, which would themselves be shaped by knowledge and socially shared affect and values.