Airlines Cough Up Passenger Data
U.S. airlines turned over a month's worth of passenger data Tuesday to Homeland Security officials, who want to test a massive, centralized passenger-screening system.
Source: Wired
Big brotha is watching you. -KFThe Transportation Security Administration ordered America's 72 airlines to turn over their June 2004 domestic passenger flight records by Tuesday afternoon. The airlines had initially protested because of privacy concerns, but they all complied.
The agency wants the records -- which can include credit card numbers, phone numbers and health information -- to test a system called Secure Flight. Currently, passengers are screened by the airlines, which check itineraries against a set of watch lists provided by the government. The TSA hopes to reduce the number of people flagged incorrectly by performing the checks itself using an expanded, centralized terrorist watch list.
Privacy advocates contend that the list-based system is ineffective and that passengers with names similar to suspected terrorists would still be snagged under the new system.
The TSA plans to evaluate the system over the next 90 days in hopes of rolling out the system in the spring.
Source: Wired
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