AA discloses pax info

[B6Busdriver]

Reuters
American Air: Passenger Data Disclosed
Friday April 9, 9:20 pm ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines' passenger names and travel itineraries were released to four research companies vying for contracts with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, the airline disclosed on Friday.
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AMR Corp.'s (NYSE:AMR - News) American is the third U.S. airline to admit to turning over passenger data since the government tightened airline security following the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked plane attacks. The revelations have raised privacy concerns and sparked several lawsuits.

American said in a statement it had authorized one of its vendors to give a week's worth of passenger name records -- about 1.2 million records -- to the security agency in June 2002. Instead, the vendor, Airline Automation Inc., gave the data to the four research companies.

American discovered the disclosures recently during a review that followed other carriers' announcements of data releases, the airline said.

"Our desire to assist TSA in the aftermath of the events of Sept. 11 was consistent with our focus on safety and security," American spokesman John Hotard said in a statement released late Friday afternoon.

"No passengers were harmed by the transfer of the data," Hotard said.

A TSA official said the agency was looking into the matter.

A passenger name record is created when a person makes a travel reservation and includes a name and travel itinerary.

Airline Automation required each company that received the data to sign a nondisclosure agreement and required the destruction or return of the data after the project was finished, American said.

Officials at Airline Automation could not immediately be reached for comment.

JetBlue Airways Corp. (NasdaqNM:JBLU - News) and Northwest Airlines Corp. (NasdaqNM:NWAC - News) have been hit with class-action suits following revelations they secretly gave passenger data to government researchers.




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[B6Busdriver]

To be fair and balanced....................


Associated Press
Airline Admits Giving U.S. Passenger Data
Friday April 9, 7:51 pm ET
By Brad Foss, AP Business Writer
American Airlines Is Third U.S. Airline to Acknowledge Giving Passenger Data to U.S. Government


WASHINGTON (AP) -- American Airlines became the third U.S. airline to acknowledge giving passenger records to the government, sparking denunciations from privacy advocates.
The world's largest airline said late Friday that in June 2002 it shared approximately 1.2 million passenger itineraries with the Transportation Security Administration and, inadvertently, four research companies vying for contracts with the agency.



Fort Worth, Texas-based American said it agreed to provide the TSA with the information "because of the heightened interest in aviation security at the time and American's desire to ensure its passenger and crew safety" following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which two of its planes were hijacked.

In 2002, American's privacy policy did not expressly prohibit sharing passenger data with the government, according to a spokesman. Today it does.

The passenger data was turned over to the TSA by Airline Automation Inc., a revenue-management technology provider hired by American.

Then, at the behest of the TSA and without American's consent, Airline Automation shared the passenger data with the four research companies -- HNC Software, Infoglide Software, Ascent Technology and Lockheed Martin, American spokesman John Hotard said.

American had earlier denied releasing passenger records. The carrier only recently became aware of the situation after conducting an internal review prompted by similar disclosures by JetBlue Airways and Northwest Airlines, Hotard said.

A nationwide computer system aimed at screening all airline passengers is being developed by the TSA. The Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, will check such things as credit reports and consumer transactions and compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.

Congress has barred implementation of the system, known as CAPPS II, until the TSA meets certain standards on security, accuracy and privacy. Under CAPPS II, passenger itinerary data would be authenticated by a private contractor and then compared with government intelligence databases.

In September, JetBlue acknowledged that it violated its own privacy policy by giving 5 million passenger itineraries to a Defense Department contractor that used the information as part of a study seeking ways to identify "high risk" airline customers. The study, produced by Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala., was titled "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment."

Then in January, Northwest said it gave passenger records covering October to December 2001 to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for a study on passenger screening. NASA kept the records for about two years, returning them to Northwest shortly after JetBlue's disclosure.

"This underscores the fact that there's now a privacy crisis within the airline industry, largely driven by government demands for passenger data," said David Sobel, general counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

"It has been a matter of secret disclosures, followed by belated admissions," he added. "We are clearly at a point where Congress needs to take a close look at privacy issues relating to air travel."

The Transportation Department is investigating the Northwest matter and there are class-action lawsuits pending against JetBlue, whose actions prompted a review by the Federal Trade Commission.

Sobel and other privacy advocates contend that the government is using commercial data to skirt the 1974 Privacy Act. The law prohibits routine data collection on ordinary Americans.

"I think passengers have real reason for concern when they hear these stories," he said.

American said Airline Automation required the potential government contractors to whom it provided the passenger data to sign nondisclosure agreements, requiring "the destruction or the return of the data after the project was completed."

 

[pipejockey]

Who are these paranoid people who would rather have their personal info kept under wraps than to have it be disclosed to security firms who just might be able to identify a security threat. And what kinds of personal info do the airlines get from their passengers? Name, address, Credit Card #? Big Deal!! If you don't have anything to hide, dont worry about it. And if if you do have something to hide, why should the airlines help you?

 

[Falconjet]

Its probably just a matter of time before it is leaked out that every carrier flying pax gave some pax itinerary info to the government. I wonder why the info is just trickling out one carrier at a time.

I think the fine folks at the TSA and FAA/DOT are trying to spread the heat around little by little so that when people finally figure out that the government probably required the carriers to provide the pax info the general public won't be so pissed at the government. Its all smoke and mirrors to try to focus rage towards the airlines while the fire dies down over time.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not all out to get you.

Some things just make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

FJ