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more on AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:43:03 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Lee Tien <tien () eff org> Date: June 22, 2005 4:27:25 PM EDT To: dave () farber netSubject: Re: [IP] AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge
Dave, Remarkably, I think the AP story understates the extent of the privacy violations by TSA and its contractor. According to TSA's revised "system of records" notice and privacy impact assessment, they didn't just get more data about June 2004 air travelers.http://www.tsa.gov/public/interweb/assetlibrary/ Secure_Flight_SORN_PIA.pdf
They took 42,000 of those names and for each "created up to twenty variations of a person's first and last names" -- then submitted both the 42,000 real names and an extra 240,000 new names to three commercial data brokers (Acxiom, InsightAmerica, and Qsent). TSA didn't say how many of these 282,000 names yielded commercial dossiers. But it's clear that personal information about many tens of thousands of people who didn't even fly in June 2004 must have been turned over. This goes way beyond a "routine" change in the official definitions. Note that under the Privacy Act, willful violation of the law regarding "systems of records" notices is a criminal misdemeanor. 5 U.S.C. ยง 552a(i)(2) ("Any officer or employee of any agency who willfully maintains a system of records without meeting the notice requirements of subsection (e)(4) of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000."). I'm not aware of any prosecutions under this provision, however. Lee At 3:33 PM -0400 6/22/05, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: eekid () aol com Date: June 22, 2005 2:12:31 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal agency collected extensive personal information about airline passengers although Congress told it not to and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press. A Transportation Security Administration contractor used three data brokers to collect detailed information about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 in order to test a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, according to documents that will be published in the Federal Register this week. The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on those passengers, called passenger name records, in November. The contractor, EagleForce Associates, then combined the passenger name records with commercial data from three contractors that included first, last and middle names, home address and phone number, birthdate, name suffix, second surname, spouse first name, gender, second address, third address, ZIP code and latitude and longitude of address. EagleForce then produced CD-ROMS containing the information "and provided those CD-ROMS to TSA for use in watch list match testing," the documents said. According to previous official notices, TSA had said it would not store commercial data about airline passengers. The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping a secret database. "I'm just floored," said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is like creating an FBI file, not just some simple check, and then they're storing the data." TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said the program was being developed with a commitment to privacy, and that it was routine to change the official definition of a system of records during a test phase.
-- ********************************** ... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier Lee Tien Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 436-9333 x 102 (tel) (415) 436-9993 (fax) tien () eff org ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge David Farber (Jun 22)