My personal positive experience in English speaking country (but not US or UK obviously) was the staff said that passengers don't need to take out stuff from hand luggage for security scanning because they have "the new kind of machines" although the machines didn't look exactly new.

The “new” machines are more like a CAT scanner vs just a 2D x-ray so they allow for easier examination of bag contents and more insight on the composition of materials.

Perhaps it's newer software, better at flagging and identifying things?