Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS
404 Media reports that the country's major airlines are selling passenger data to Customs and Border Protection and ICE.
[Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS]
I assumed this was happening, but it's good to have it confirmed.
"A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected U.S. travellers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details."
This is another example of how the US government bypasses certain Constitutional protections by simply buying the data they seek. ICE separately purchases data from this broker.
I agree with Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, who is quoted in the piece as follows:
“Overall it strikes me as yet another alarming example of how the ‘Big Data Surveillance Complex’ is becoming the digital age version of the Military-Industrial Complex.”
We need stronger data regulations very badly - but are unlikely to get them during this administration.
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