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Friday, 24 March 2017
Tips for travellers about the "Muslim laptop ban"
The "Muslim laptop ban" goes into effect today: The U.S. government has ordered airlines to prevent passengers from bringing laptop or tablet computers or other electronic devices "larger than a cellphone" (whatever that means) on their person or in carry-on baggage on direct flights between 10 airports in countries with... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Palantir, Peter Thiel, Big Data, and the DHS
[On the sidewalk in front of Palantir founder and Trump supporter Peter Thiel's house at 2920 Broadway in San Francisco.] On Saturday, I joined an ad hoc group of picketers outside the Pacific Heights mansion of Palantir Technologies founder and Trump supporter Peter Thiel (photo gallery from the SF... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 27 February 2017
FAQs about travel in the time of Trump
President Trump's emphasis on control of travel and borders has prompted a surge of interest in freedom of movement as a civil liberties and human rights issue. Here are some of my FAQs and analyses of this issue over the last month for the Identity Project: FAQ: What should you... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 27 January 2017
President Trump, Populist Politics, and the Prospects for Privacy
I was on a panel on Wednesday at the Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection conference in Brussels on the topic of "Populist Politics and the Prospects for Privacy". Through no fault of the organizers, who were extremely accommodating of my last-minute proposal for this panel after the US elections,... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Unresponsive "comments" from Amadeus
Exactly three weeks after a public demonstration of the insecurity of public Web gateways to computerized reservation systems (CRSs) -- a threat to travellers that I've been writing, speaking and telling the CRS operators about for more than 15 years -- one of those companies has responded to my request... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 14 January 2017
The REAL-ID Act and the TSA proposal to require ID to fly
Much of my work for the last decade as a consultant to the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org) on travel-related civil-liberties and human rights issues has focused on requirements to obtain government permission and/or show government-issued ID credentials in order to travel by common carrier. No law in the USA requires you... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 12 January 2017
"What can I do to protect my PNR data?"
Since the recent public demonstration of some of the security and privacy vulnerabilities of airline reservations systems that I've been writing and speaking about for more than 15 years, people have been asking me, "What can I do to protect myself against stalking, harassment, surveillance, and fraud when I travel?"... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 December 2016
CRS/GDS companies and travellers' privacy
[In the middle of the presentation by SRLabs at 33C3 on Tuesday, Nemanja Nikodijevic discovered that Amadeus had taken its "CheckMyTrip.com" PNR-viewing Web site offline to prevent the vulnerabilities of the site from being demonstrated in real time. Screen capture from CC3C video by permission of SRLabs. Click images... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 27 December 2016
"Travel data: fraud with booking codes is too easy"
[Some of the privacy and security threats to PNR data and the CRS network, from my testimony in 2013 as an invited expert witness before the Advisory Committee on Aviation Consumer Protection of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Click image for larger version.] Video, slides, and blog post of... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 21 December 2016
"This is what 'extreme vetting' means."
I'm quoted at length in a story today in The Verge and on CNBC about the DHS "Analytical Framework for Intelligence" (AFI), a data-mining and profiling system outsourced to a company founded by a member of the Trump transition team and used to "vet" immigrants, foreign visitors, and US citizens,... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 6 July 2016
The no-fly list and the no-gun list
[The proposed No-Fly, No Buy law currently under debate in Congress would add the Terrorist Screening Database as a third source (yellow arrow at center right of flow chart) of entries in the "No-Gun" list, in addition to Federal and state felony convictions and certain misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence.... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 30 May 2016
How can we make airlines respect our privacy?
A decision last week by a California state Court of Appeal in a case involving an airline smartphone app highlights the legal impunity enjoyed by airlines that invade their customers' and passengers' privacy. Delta Air Lines' mobile app collects all the information travellers provide when they buy tickets, reserve seats,... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 6 May 2016
Can you opt out of having your home listed on TripAdvisor?
I heard from my brother that I was quoted on the front page of the Boston Globe earlier this week, in a story by Megan Woolhouse about a couple who run a restuarant in their home and are trying to get it removed fromt TripAdvisors's listings: "A five-star rating on... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 21 April 2016
"The Limits of the US Judicial Redress Act"
I have an article in the latest issue of Privacy Laws & Business International Report on The Limits of the US Judicial Redress Act. It's a shorter version (without most of the references and links) of this article on PapersPlease.org. The Judicial Redress Act was enacted in response to European... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 20 April 2016
How safe is airline passenger data? Not secure at all.
[PNR data flows. Each node in the network is a point of vulnerability. Click image for larger version.] This week in the German IT news portal Golem and the German weekly news magazine Die Zeit, Hauke Gierow has a deep dive, based in substantial part on a long interview... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 12 April 2016
What's at stake in the European PNR debate?
[Excerpt from a simple Passenger Name Record (PNR) from the file about me kept by the CBP division of DHS. Click image for larger version. Most PNRs have more information than this.] This week the European Parliament is scheduled to debate and vote on a proposed directive "on the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 30 March 2016
How does your bank know your dog's not a terrorist?
I was interviewed by Monte Francis of KTVU (Channel 2) News last week to help make sense out of what happened to Bruce Francis, a disabled San Francisco man whose online request to send a check to pay the person who walks his service dog was refused by Chase... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 9 January 2016
What's the real story about the REAL-ID Act and air travel?
[Image from video by WCCO, CBS Minnesota, 7 January 2016] Travellers are understandably confused by recent news about the REAL-ID Act and purported new ID requirements for passengers on domestic flights within the USA. Accurate public understanding of what's going on is not helped by the fact that the... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 December 2015
"T.S.A. Moves Closer to Rejecting Some State Driver"s Licenses for Travel"
I'm quoted in an article today in the New York Times about the Federal government's efforts to use the threat of denial of air travel to scare state legislators into connecting their state drivers license and ID databases to the distributed national "REAL-ID" database through the REAL-ID "hub" operated by... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 11 September 2015
Air travel predictions come true: luggage locks and interline ticketing
Two predictions I made a decade or longer ago have come true this week, one about the farcically insecure "TSA-approved" luggage locks, and the other marking a much more significant milestone in the anti-consumer balkanization of the airline industry. (1) Master keys for TSA-approved "Travel Sentry" luggage locks made public.... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Expert critique of EU travel surveillance and profiling plans
Independent legal experts commissioned by the Council of Europe (COE) to assess proposals for surveillance and profiling of air travellers throughout the European Union have returned a detailed and perceptive critique of the proposed EU directive on government access to, and use of, Passenger Name Record (PNR) data from airline... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 26 April 2015
Privacy Commissioner finds my complaint against Air Canada "well-founded"
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found that my complaint that Air Canada violated the Canadian "Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act" (PIPEDA) by failing to respond fully, properly, and in a timely manner to my request for what information Air Canada had about me, and what... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 13 January 2015
Obama "data breach" bill ignores sensitivity of travel info
Today President Obama released the text of his proposal for a "National Data Breach Notification Standard". The point of the bill is to create a nationally-standard requirement for businesses to notify consumers whenever "sensitive" personal or account information is improperly disclosed. The President's bill is only the starting point for... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 7 November 2014
The Amazing Race 25, Episode 7
Marrakesh (Morocco) - Palermo (Italy) "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." (Not.) There are some things that happen during the filming of The Amazing Race that television viewers never see. Each episode of the reality-TV race around the world is separated from the next by a 12-hour (or occasionally... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 17 October 2014
"Travelers, say bon voyage to privacy"
I talked at length with Watchdog investigative reporter Dave Lieber for his column in today's Dallas Morning News: Travelers, say bon voyage to privacy. Lieber hits the nail on the head by calling out how few travellers realize that the U.S. government is keeping a permanent file of complete mirror... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 2 October 2014
Is Google monopolizing flight and airfare search?
Not yet. But as the Washington Post quotes me today: "I don't think that [Google] Fare Search has had much impact on consumers," says Edward Hasbrouck, a critic of the ITA purchase. But he thinks that we"re not out of the woods yet. After the Justice Department"s consent decree expires... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 26 September 2014
The Amazing Race 25, Episode 1
New York, NY (USA) - St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (USA) ["Hey mister customs man, there's a flea in my passport!"] I got a new personal radio tracking beacon this month. I'll be carrying it with me, wherever I go, whenever I leave the USA for the next ten years.... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 22 August 2014
Key U.S. Senator questions airlines on privacy practices
The Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), has sent a public letter of inquiry this week to the ten largest USA-based airlines, asking them to respond by 5 September 2014 to a series of questions about consumer issues including what information airlines collect about travellers, how long... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 May 2014
My objections to airlines' plan to "personalize" prices
Today I filed formal objections to U.S. Department of of Transportation's tentative decision to approve a proposal from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to replace publicly-disclosed tariffs of airfares with "personalized" airline ticket prices. Most of the initial objections to IATA's proposal came from within the travel industry. These... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 27 May 2014
"Can I see what information the feds have on my travel?"
Ars Techica editor and technology journalist Cyrus Fariva reports today on the initial response to his Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for CBP"s records about his travel history, including CBP"s copies of airline Passenger Name Records (PNRs): I then asked Edward Hasbrouck,... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Public questioning of US government on human rights
US government delegation listens to questions from the UN Human Rights Committee. (Click image for larger version.) At the head table, left to right: Scott Shuchart (Senior Adviser, Office of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, DHS), Megan Mack (Officer for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, DHS), Bruce Swartz (Deputy... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 24 February 2014
Book launch today for Julia Angwin's "Dragnet Nation"
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and author Julia Angwin, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now with the non-profit investigative journalism organization ProPublica, is speaking today on NPR's Fresh Air and at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU about her new book, Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security,... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 23 December 2013
"US-Aktivist: Berlin tut gar nichts"
I was interviewed for a feature this past weekend in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper in Gernany, "Für deutsches Datenrecht" -- US-Aktivist: Berlin tut gar nichts (by Waltraud Messmann, 21 December 2013). The full interview (in German translation) ran in the print edition. But since only the introduction seems to... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 16 December 2013
N.Y. Times editorial cites my reports from the "no-fly" trial
Photo of Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim by Nashairi Mohd Nawi in the New Straits Times (Malaysia) Because no other journalist attended more than a few hours of the week-long "no-fly" trial earlier this month in San Francisco, my coverage of the trial has been relied on by many other commentators,... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Call for U.S. DOT to act on travel privacy
There is virtually no legal protection for the privacy of personal information about travelers on U.S.-based airlines: There is no general consumer privacy law in the U.S. like those in Canada or the European Union. Businesses can do pretty much anything they want with personal information, as long as they... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 2 December 2013
"No-fly" trial in San Francisco this week
Courtroom sketches from day 4 of the trial by kind permission of Jackson West: Judge Alsup (left, rear), plaintiff's expert witness Prof. Sinnar (top right), Special Agent Lubman (FBI Terrorist Screening Center, center right), and Mr. Cooper (State Department, lower right). Some rights reserved, CC BY 3.0 US. I'll... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 14 November 2013
"Ed Hasbrouck versus the TSA"
Kelley Vlahos, who's been covering "homeland security" and civil liberties since before 9/11, has a sympathetic portrait of me and my last dozen years of work, particularly with the Identity Project, in her column today at Antiwar.com (a Web site which was itself wrongly investigated and surveilled for years by... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 21 October 2013
"Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly"
"Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly" (by Susan Stellin, The New York Times, 21 October 2013, page A1): The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 29 September 2013
How the NSA obtains and uses PNR data (airline reservations)
If you are looking for my analysis of the report in today's New York Times that the NSA, like the DHS, obtained airline reservations (PNR data) and used them for social network analysis, it's here on PapersPlease.org (The Identity Project).... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 6 September 2013
Why did the NSA hack an airline reservation system (when CBP already has root access)?
The latest revelations about NSA attacks on encrypted electronic communications include this sentence buried in an article in yesterday's New York Times (first noted today by the travel news website Skift): But by 2006, an N.S.A. document notes, the agency had broken into communications for three foreign airlines, one travel... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 5 September 2013
I'm on the TSA's list of its enemies.
Part of my work with the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org) involves trying to use the Freedom Of Information act (FOIA) to obtain information about the travel surveillance and control activities of the U.S. government's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of which the TSA is a... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 19 August 2013
USA approves new "long forms" for some passport applicants
Two years ago, I was the first to report (in an article cross-posted at Consumertraveler.com and on the Identity Project blog at PapersPlease.org) on an impossibie new "long form" that the U.S. Department of State proposed to require be completed by some (but not all) applicants for USA passports. It... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 12 August 2013
While we were on the road...
Over the course of the summer, I've been quoted and seen on TV on a variety of travel topics from the implications of NSA spying scandal for travellers' privacy (I'll be posting more on this issue at PapersPlease.org) to travel mistakes and... toilet paper: United flight leaving from London... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 28 May 2013
Matching of TripAdvisor and LinkedIn photos outs Accor hotel executive as shill
Travel industry news site Tnooz has the story on an executive of the Accor hotel chain who was posting reviews of hotels on TripAdvisor.com without mentioning his affiliation. Tnooz mentions that this violated TripAdvisor's rules. What may be more important is that it appears to have violated the FTC's rules... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 20 May 2013
"Consumer Privacy and Air Travel: Recommendations to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation"
[ACACP in session, 21 May 2013. Left to right: Lisa Madigan, chair (Attorney General of Illinois), Charlie Leocha (Founder and Director, Consumer Travel Alliance), Deborah Ale Flint (Executive Director, Oakland Airport), David Berg (General Counsel, "Airlines For America")] I'm on my way to Washington to take part in an... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 3 May 2013
DOT Advisory Committee on Consumer Protection to consider privacy of travel data
In the first formal public consideration ever by the U.S. government of the privacy issues posed by airline reservations and other personal information used by the air travel industry, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection will devote much of its next quarterly all-day meeting in... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 24 April 2013
European parliamentarians question surveillance of air travellers
Today in Brussels the "LIBE" (civil liberties) committee of the European Parliament decisively rejected a proposal backed by European police and some European national governments (and heavily lobbied for by the USA) to establish systems throughout the EU, modeled on those in the USA, for government access to, and use... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 23 April 2013
"Speak out now on the TSA's full-body scanners"
I'm quoted in Christopher Elliott's syndicated travel column today in the Chicago Tribune (and previously in the Washington Post and elsewhere) about the TSA's ongoing solicitation of public comments on its use of virtual strip-search machines and groping of travellers' genitals, breasts, and buttocks: Speak out now on the TSA's... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 22 April 2013
California legislature considers transit privacy and rules for motorists passing bicycles
I can't make it to Sacramento today, but the Committee on Transportation of the California Assembly will be holding a hearing on two bills of interest: Assembly Bill 179 (status) would extend the privacy protections provided by current California law for records related to RFID vehicle toll payment systems (e.g.... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 4 April 2013
"When you check in, your private information may be checked out"
I was quoted in Christopher Elliott's "Navigator" column in the Washington Post travel section last Sunday, talking about how personal information we provide to hotels -- including, but not limited to, credit card numbers -- is or isn't protected: When you check in, your private information may be checked out.... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 26 March 2013
"Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion" at the Cato Institute
I'll be speaking at a free, public forum on Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion from noon-1 p.m. EDT next Tuesday, 2 April 2013, at the Cato Institute in Washington DC (with a live and archived webcast): Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion [photo by kind permission of Jeramie D. Scott] Video from the... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 4 February 2013
ACLU blog cites my research on DHS travel logs
My insightful friend Jay Stanley of the ACLU had a thought-provoking article last Friday in the ACLU's "Free Future" blog, using as examples some of the records I and other travellers obtained through my lawsuit and other Privacy Act and FOIA requests from our files in the DHS "Automated Targeting... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 16 January 2013
"Mission Creep at the TSA?"
In the February/March 2013 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine, Christopher Elliott discussses how the TSA has expanded its activities from air travel to other activities: You might encounter a TSA screening area when you"re at the train station or the subway. In one memorable 2011 incident, Amtrak passengers disembarking... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Travel is a right -- but does the U.S. government care?
I've been pointing out for years that freedom to travel is a right. But for at least the last decade, the U.S. government has been treating travel as a privilege granted by government. Late last month, I submitted recommendations to United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on behalf of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 9 December 2012
The Amazing Race 21, Episode 10 (season finale)
Palma de Mallorca (Spain) - Barcelona (Spain) - Tours (France) - Loire Valley (France) - Paris (France) - New York, NY (USA) [Part of the vast, grand, but unused Canfranc train station at the Spanish portal of the Somport rail tunnel through the Pyrenees. This should be the main passenger... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 16 November 2012
Air Canada lies about government access to reservations
Airlines should have defended their customers against government demands for information. Instead, they have chosen to collaborate with governments not just in surveillance and violation of the rights of their customers, but in the cover-up of those practices and the attempt to keep travellers from realizing their extent. I... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Government Surveillance of Travellers
For those attending today's discussion of Government Survelliance of Travellers and the DHS "Automated Targeting System" (ATS) at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, or those who can't make it but are interested in the topic, here are the slides from my presentation and links to... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 24 September 2012
State Dept. admits impossible passport form was illegal, but still wants it approved
The new U.S. passport application forms I warned you about last year are back, worse than ever. Ignoring massive public opposition, and despite having recently admitted that it is already using the "proposed" forms illegally without approval, the State Department is trying again to get approval for a pair of... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 23 September 2012
Chris Elliott: A "papers, please" society?
My fellow travel writer and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott has a thoughtful article in his blog today featuring my work with the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org): How close are we getting to a "papers please" society?: America is edging closer to a "papers please" society, at least when it comes to... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 21 September 2012
"Automated Targeting System" briefing Oct. 3rd in New York
While I'm in New York City next month, I'll be giving a brown-bag lunch presentation on the DHS "Automated Targeting System" and government surveillance and control of travelers on Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 12:30 - 2 p.m., at the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law, 161... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 29 August 2012
United Airlines grounded by CRS outage
For several hours yesterday afternoon (US time), United Airlines was unable to check in or board passengers on most of its scheduled flights because of an outage affecting the computerized reservation system (CRS) that hosts United's database of passenger name records (PNRs). This wasn't the first time this sort of... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 24 August 2012
eBay and Paypal change their terms to require users' consent to unlimited robocalls and text-message spam
Back in 2009, I reported that credit-card issuers led by American Express had begun requiring their customers' consent to receive unlimited robocalls and text messages at any telephone number those customers had ever used, including cellphone numbers. That posed a risk of harassment for all customers, a risk of extra... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Should public school students be compelled to wear radio tracking beacons?
In response to the threat to privacy, civil liberties, and human dignity posed by plans by a San Antonio public school district to start requiring students to wear badges with RFID chips so that their movements can be tracked throughout the schools (or wherever anyone else sets up an RFID... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 16 July 2012
At the end of my lawsuit, what have we learned about DHS travel surveillance?
I've "stipulated" (agreed, legally, although that doesn't mean I really agree) to the dismissal of the remaining claims in my lawsuit, Hasbrouck v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I am grateful to my lawyers David Greene, Lowell Chow, Jim Wheaton, and Geoff King; to the First Amendment Project staff and... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 25 April 2012
European Parliament approves PNR agreement with the US. What's next?
It took some time, but I've posted a detailed analysis at PapersPlease.org of the issues and avenues for activism that remain after last week's vote in the European Parliament approving an agreement on US government access to PNR data for flights between the EU and the US.... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 1 March 2012
Google is now hosting airline reservations (PNR's)
Details on what this means, and why it matters, in my article today for the Identity Project at PapersPlease.org. (More background to Google's entry into the travel technology business here and here.)... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 6 February 2012
KLM wants you to make the DHS your friend on Facebook
Getting the jump on airline "social seating" startups like SeatID.com, KLM launched a new Meet & Seat service last Friday that allows passengers on certain flights (including some to and from the USA) to make portions fo their Facebook and /or LinkedIn profiles available for viewing by fellow passengers --... (...Read Entire Entry)US State Dept. finalizes passport fee increases, continues to ignore human rights complaints
On February 2, 2012, the State Department published a final rule in the Federal Register setting fees for issuance and renewal of U.S. passports and related consular services. Contrary to some press reports, this rule didn't actually increase the current fees. It merely "finalizes" the fee increases that have already... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 24 January 2012
First rulings in my lawsuit over DHS travel records
I've been waiting since the oral argument I attended last September 15th for a decision from Federal District Judge Richard Seeborg in my Privacy Act and FOIA lawsuit against the DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division for information about their records of my travels. By a bizarre coincidence, I... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 5 January 2012
TSA is expanding its "PreCheck" (pre-crime) traveller registration scheme
I'll be on the Patt Morrison show on KPCC (the main NPR station in greater Los Angeles) from 2-2:30 p.m. to talk about the expansion to LAX and more other airports of the TSA's PreCheck traveller registration program. Listen (on the air or online) and call in with your questions... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 11 December 2011
The Amazing Race 19, Episode 11
Panama City (Panama) - Atlanta (Georgia) "Reisefreiheit" (Freedom to Travel) Ironically, the final episode in which The Amazing Race 19 returned home to the USA from Panama was broadcast on the same day that Manuel Noriega, the dictator deposed and kidnapped to imprisonment in Florida during the US invasion of... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 4 December 2011
The Amazing Race 19, Episode 10
Brussels (Belgium) - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Panama City (Panama) The outcome of this week's episode of The Amazing Race 19 was determined by yet another challenge in identifying the signal amid the noise: The racers were told that their clue could be found somewhere on the patterned and printed costumes... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 November 2011
American Airlines and American Eagle are bankrupt
American Airlines, American Eagle, and their parent holding company AMR Corporation filed for bankruptcy this morning. What does this mean for travellers? See my updated FAQ about Airline Bankruptcies. American Airlines' initial press releases and statements to customers today have carefully avoided the fraudulent claims most of their competitors have... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Upcoming events in Europe
[At the c-base hackerspace, Berlin, 20 October 2011.] I'll be in Europe for most of the rest of this month representing the Identity Project in a series of public events and private meetings with European Union and European national officials on PNR data (airline reservations), privacy, data protection, and... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 15 September 2011
After more than a year, my first day in court
A little more than a year after I filed suit against the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of DHS to find out what records they are keeping about my international travels, and what they have done with those records, I had my first real day in court today in... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 11 September 2011
Is travel safer today than 10 years ago? No.
Is travel safer today than it was 10 years ago on 11 September 2001? No. Here's how and why: 1. Travel by land instead of by air. Some people switched from flying to driving or taking trains or buses because they became more afraid to fly after 11 September 2001.... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 September 2011
NoPNR.org: "Why should I care about PNR?"
I have a guest post today at NoPNR.org, the Web site of a European grassroots campaign against government surveillance of airline reservations: Why should I care about PNR? More for my European readers about PNR data and how it is used by governments: More about what's in a PNR Examples... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 25 August 2011
Testimony to BART's Board of Directors
I testified yesterday at a public meeting of the Bay Area Rapid Transit district (BART) Board of Directors in Oakland. My statement in the video above was constrained by the time limit for public comments. You can read a longer version with links on the Identity Project blog. [Update:... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 15 August 2011
Hearing on my lawsuit against DHS postponed to September 15th
The hearing in my Privacy Act and FOIA lawsuit against the Customs and Border Protection division of DHS, previously scheduled for 25 August 2011, has been postponed for the convenience of the court (neither I nor the DHS had requested this delay) until Thursday, 15 September 2011, 1:30 p.m. in... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 30 July 2011
My reply to DHS claims that travel dossiers are exempt from the Privacy Act
My reply brief and supporting declaration were filed yesterday in Hasbrouck v. CBP, my Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records from and about the DHS "Automated Targeting System" of individualized government dossiers about each of the the millions of international travelers to and from the... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 18 July 2011
DHS reply to my arguments for release of travel records
Late last Friday night, lawyers for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (one of the divisions of the DHS) filed their reply to my motion for summary judgment in Hasbrouck v. CBP, my lawsuit under the Privacy Act and Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) seeking release of PNR data and other... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 30 June 2011
My arguments for disclosure of US government travel surveillance records
My attorneys from the First Amendment Project filed their main briefs last Friday in my Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In this case, Hasbrouck v. CBP, I am seeking to compel U.S. Customs and Border Protection (one of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Video from CFP: "A Clash of Civilizations?"
Video of the opening plenary of last week's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference has been posted on Youtube: A Clash of Civilizations? The EU and US Negotiate the Future of Privacy Part 1 of 6 Part 2 of 6 (my presentation starts at10:50) Part 3 of 6 (continuation of... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 7 June 2011
DHS moves to dismiss my Privacy Act lawsuit for PNR data
Late last Friday, June 3rd, the U.S. government filed a motion for summary judgment against me in my Privacy Act and FOIA lawsuit for records from the government's files of records of my international travels, including Passenger Name Records (PNR's). Â The government's motion and supporting affidavits and exhibits are... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 3 June 2011
Speaking at "Computers, Freedom, and Privacy" conference
I'm excited, and a bit overwhelmed, to be the sole non-governmental panelist in the opening plenary session of this year's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Washington: A Clash of Civilizations: The EU and US Negotiate the Future of Privacy Tuesday, June 14, 2011; 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM... (...Read Entire Entry)Growing opposition to U.S. access to European airline reservations
My analysis of the leaked draft of a proposed ""Agreement between the United States of America and the European Union on the use transfer of Passenger Name Record [PNR] data to the United States Department of Homeland Security" has gotten extensive coverage in Europe, including reports and links from the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 28 April 2011
Form DS-5513: Proposed "Biographical Questionnaire" for (some) passport applicants
I never expected to see my words coming out of the mouth of Glenn Beck (see video above) on the same day that they were quoted by the Daily Kos, but I guess that's what can happen when (a) one of your stories goes viral and (b) the subject... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 9 February 2011
"Airline Passenger Profiling: Back From the Grave?"
There's an excellent article on the latest developments in airline passenger profiling today in the Huffington Post by my friend Jay Stanley, policy analyst for the ACLU. It includes a link to my FAQ, What's in a Passenger Name Record (PNR)?, which provides some background on the data being used... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Reporting live from Albuquerque, New Mexico
I was in Albuquerque, NM, last week (again by Amtrak) to cover the TSA checkpoint trial of Phil Mocek for the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org): Why are we here in Albuquerque at Phil Mocek's trial? (Trial Day 1) Phil Mocek found "NOT GUILTY" by Albuquerque jury (Trial Day 2) Audio... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 10 January 2011
Interviews with Antiwar.com and KPFK radio
No sooner had I posted the preceding article, "Entering radio silence" on Friday morning than I was invited to talk about the work of the Identity Project on Scott Horton's "Antiwar radio" podcast on Antiwar.com and on KPFK Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles (play stream) (download) Friday evening. The two... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 7 January 2011
Quoted here and there
Security concerns for IDs with microchips: New 'Ready Lanes' incentive for border crossers by Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera, El Paso Inc. (27 December 2010): Privacy advocates and civil rights groups raised their concerns with the Department of State when it first proposed equipping passport books with RFID tags in 2005. In response,... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 6 January 2011
First court hearing in my lawsuit against DHS
Today I had my first chance to meet the judge and the lawyer for the government in my Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security for withholding travel surveillance records. The hearing today was mostly procedural, but there are some significant... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Government's answer to my lawsuit: Deny everything, and claim that nobody has any rights
Where has your PNR data gone? (click image for larger version or here for details) The U.S. government has filed its initial answer to my lawsuit against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for illegally withholding records of its travel surveillance system, and an initial procedural hearing in the case... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 4 December 2010
Off to Albuquerque on Amtrak
I'm off to Albuquerque on Amtrak this morning to observe and report on the trial next week of "Freedom Flyer" Phil Mocek, the person to be prosecuted for (nonviolently, politely, and legally) questioning the TDSA's "security" procedures at ABQ airport. I'll be posting updates on the trial at PapersPlease.org. But... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Testifying today to the Canadian Parliament
I got a last-minute invitation to testify today (by videoconference from San Francisco) on behalf of the Liberty Coalition at a hearing before the Canadian House of Commons' Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on Bill C-42, which would override Canada's "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" (PIPEDA)... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Holiday air travel updates and advice
Some of my recent articles from PapersPlease.org: FAQ: What you need to know about your rights at the airport Airlines lie, but you can get a refund if you opt out of being x-rayed or groped. Here's what to do. What to do if an airline cancels your reservation or... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 29 October 2010
DHS Privacy office ordered TSA not to respond to my FOIA request
Details here from the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org).... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 3 September 2010
Thanks for your support!
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has send their encouragement -- in comments here in my blog, in the Identity Project blog, by e-mail, on Twitter, and by phone -- for the lawsuit on my behalf by the First Amendment Project against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. I've written... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Why I'm suing the Department of Homeland Security
[Update: Several readers have asked, "What can I do to help?" See the Identity Project's FAQ: Edward Hasbrouck v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection for answers to this and other questions about the lawsuit. If you'd like to be kept informed (and to receive other travel news and articles), sign... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 July 2010
Washington Post: "Secure Flight may be making your privacy less secure"
I'm quoted today as spokesperson for the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org) in the Washington Post in a story by Christopher Elliott about how airlines are able to use personal information -- collected under government duress for the TSA's Secure Flight passenger surveillance and control scheme -- for the airlines' own marketing... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 June 2010
USA State Dept. brushes off critics, raises passport fees
Yesterday the USA Department of State published an interim final rule putting its previously proposed increases in passport and visa fees into effect as of July 13, 2010. The State Department admitted that more than 98% of the comments received from individual members of the public were opposed to the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 17 June 2010
European cooperation with US dataveillance
Lee Tien and Katitza Rodriguez of the Electronic Frontier Foundation kindly invited me to join them at the last minute on a panel on current privacy hot topics at the 2010 conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy which I've been attending this week at San Jose State University. (Kudos to... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 14 June 2010
Lufthansa says they aren't responsible for their agents and contractors
As I've mentioned in an earlier review of their service, I flew Lufthansa to Europe and back in April. As soon as I got home, I sent them a request for their records about my trip and an accounting of what they (and their agents, contractors, government agencies, etc.) had... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 5 May 2010
European Parliament stands up to DHS on freedom of movement
Today the USA Department of Homeland Security and its schemes for surveillance and control of our movements received their most significant rebuff from any democratically elected body since the DHS was created after September 11, 2001. Details from the Identity Project at PapersPlease.org (where much of my writing is published... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 April 2010
Arizona radio call-in discussion on ID and "immigration" law
I'll be on the Jay Lawrence Show on KTAR (92.3 FM) in Phoenix this Sunday, May 2nd, from 7-8 p.m. Arizona time (7-8 p.m. PDT, 10-11 p.m. EDT), on behalf of the Identity Project , to discuss and take calls on the new Arizona "immigration enforcement" law, S.B. 1070, its... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Podcast on "Passenger Name Records" (PNR)
Swedish libertarian blogger "HAX" (Henrik Alexandersson) has an 25-minute podcast in his English-language blog, The Embedded Citizen and in his Swedish blog of a conversation we had last week over an al fresco lunch on a perfect spring day in Strasbourg (pictured above) about Passenger Name Record data. Also... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 18 April 2010
DHS still trying to mislead Europeans about its use of PNR data
As the European Parliament prepares to vote this week in Strasbourg (where I am now) on the terms of reference for renegotiation of the agreement between the EU and the DHS on transfers of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data to, and use by, the DHS, I've posted a detailed analysis... (...Read Entire Entry)A lesson from Berlin to take to Strasbourg
I spent a brillant spring day on Saturday strolling down from the hostel where I've been staying in the Prenzlauer district of the former East Berlin, gentrified but still diverse in ways that remind me of some of the parts of Brooklyn closest to Manhattan, into Berlin's "Mitte" (downtown), past... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 16 April 2010
Workshop on PNR data at Re:Publica (Berlin)
I'm speaking about Passenger Name Record (PNR) data as part of a workshop from 15:00-16:00 (GMT +1, PDT +9) today at the Re:Publica blogger, media, and net society conference in Berlin. The keynote presentations are being Webcast, but not the workshops. Some links for more information: Slides with annotation How... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Passenger Name Records (PNR) in practice: a case study
I spoke about Passenger Name Record (PNR) data as a case study in the relationship of EU policies to the realities of industry and US government practice at the European Privacy OS conference today in Oxford (UK). Some links for more information: Slides with annotation How to request your own... (...Read Entire Entry)Link |
Posted by Edward, 13 April 2010, 22:44 (10:44 PM)
Sunday, 28 March 2010
European discussions on PNR and CRS privacy
I'll be in Europe for much of April in the run-up to the European Parliament vote on whether to approve an "agreement" with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for DHS access to airline reservation (PNR) data collected in the European Union. Check my schedule for any updates or additional... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Passport Day in the USA this Saturday, March 27th
If you have a USA passport, listen up: This Saturday, March 27th, State Department passport offices in major cities across the USA, normally open only on weekdays and only by appointment, will be open on Saturday and with no appointments necessary for walk-in applications. If you're a USA citizen and... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 12 March 2010
Airlines, travel agencies, Congress join public outcry against passport fees
I don't think it's fair or legal for the government to charge you a fee to exercise your rights under the First Amendment and international human rights treaties to enter or leave the USA. Those rights are all but absolute, and rules that restrict or burden them, such as by... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 26 February 2010
USA raising fees for both inbound and outbound travellers
Under a series of new laws and regulatory proposals, almost everyone travelling internationally to or from the USA -- US passport holders, visa-free foreign visitors, and foreigners with visas -- would have to pay more in government fees for the required credentials and/or permissions. Today the U.S. Senate passed the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 12 February 2010
What to expect if you are going to the Olympics in Vancouver
A Canadian coalition led by the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group has released a timely Report of the Information Clearinghouse on Border Controls and Infringements to Travellers' Rights on the human rights issues faced by travellers to and from Canada, based on two years of research and reports submitted to... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 8 January 2010
Lessons from the case of the man who set his underpants on fire
If you're looking for my analysis of recent events, I've posted it in the Identity Project blog: We've been having a hard time keeping up with events over the last few weeks. Every time we think the keystone cops from the Department of Homeland Security can't come up with anything... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 13 December 2009
TSA Screening Management Procedures
There's been a lot of news in the last week about the USA Transportation Security Administration's posting of the TSA "Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)" on a public Federal government Web site. The Identity Project has previously obtained portions of this document in response to our requests under the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 26 November 2009
"Keeping Track of Travelers' Personal Information"
WSAV-TV in Savannah, Georgia, used my forms and instructions to request the U.S. government's records about one of their reporters' travels from the "Automated Targeting Ssystem". Two months later, after getting an (incomplete) response, they've broadcast a detailed Thanksgiving travel-season report on what they found and its significance: Keeping Track... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 8 November 2009
Chase joins "Hall of Shame" for credit card terms and conditions
I've previously recommended the credit card issued by Chase in conjunction with the Amtrak Guest Rewards frequent-rider program as one of the best frequent-traveller credit cards, depending on whether you travel regularly on Amtrak, and if so on which routes. It has high fees for foreign transactions, cash advances, or... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 6 November 2009
Consumer groups call for action on travel privacy
The Consumer Travel Alliance, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights have joined me in comments filed today with the Federal Trade Commission asking the FTC to "include the category of travel data in your agenda for action to protect the privacy of... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 October 2009
Consumer privacy, travel records, and the FTC
The USA Federal Trade Commission -- one of the Federal agencies that seems to have really taken a new direction under new management with the Obama Administration -- is organizing "a series of day-long public roundtable discussions to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 16 August 2009
More FAQ's about "Secure Flight"
If you're confused by recent news reports about "Secure Flight", such as why an airline or travel agencies wants you to tell them your data of birth or gender (what are transgendered people supposed to answer?), how they will use this data, or whether they can penalize you or prevent... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Mentions here and there
This blog has been selected as one of the Best Travel Guide blogs for 2009 by Tripbase in their inaugural travel blog awards: WomenEntrepreneur.com singles me out as follows: Get the Inside Scoop on Travel: Here are 5 bloggers who offer eye-opening advice and information about life on the road... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 2 July 2009
"Clear" shuts down its registered-traveller system
Verified Identity Pass, Inc. ("VIP") shut down its Clear traveller registration and airport fast-lane scheme last week. Under the Clear scheme, and two much smaller competing ones run by other companies, air travellers could get access to dedicated lanes leading up to TSA checkpoints in airports, in exchange for payment... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 4 June 2009
"Enhancing" the drivers license
I'm on a panel this afternoon at CFP to discuss the "enhanced" drivers' licenses (EDL's) being issued in some U.S. states and Canadian provinces: Border-line ID: "Enhancing" the drivers license - for security or surveillance? This session will examine technical and political contradictions in the development of "enhanced" drivers licenses... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Congress to vote on virtual strip searches at airports
I'm spending this week in Washington, DC, at one of my favorite annual events, the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. There's live streaming video of the conference plenaries, although I don;t think it includes the breakout sessions such as the one Thursday where I'll be talking about the Western Hemisphere... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 1 June 2009
"Today we're all prisoners in the USA"
I've posted an important alert today in the Identity Project blog about a change in U.S. government rules that could trap you inside (or outside) the borders of the USA, unable to leave the country or to return -- even if you're a U.S. citizen.... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 10 May 2009
What does Air France do with reservation data?
Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines present quite different "corporate cultures", despite being owned by the same French parent corporation , the Air France-KLM Group . Unfortunately, my latest experiments have shown that these two airlines have in common a disregard for the privacy and data protection laws applicable... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 2 May 2009
"Secure Flight" data formats added to the AIRIMP
How soon will we have to get government permission to move around the USA? My analysis today in the Identity Project blog: Secure Flight data formats added to the AIRIMP... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 20 April 2009
New developments in government control of travelers in the USA
Over at the Identity Project blog, I have a pair of reports today on the latest developments in government control of air travellers in the USA: TSA claims new powers of detention, search, and interrogation Secret Secure Flight 'vetting' algorithm now in use by 4 US airlines... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 19 March 2009
AmEx continues to spam me ... after closing my account
As I've previously reported, American Express closed my account because I objected to the new terms they proposed that would have required me, in order to keep my AmEx card after 2 April 2009, to "consent" (on behalf of myself and anyone else whose phone I might ever use to... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Air France puts digital fingerprints in RFID boarding passes
I've often said that there's an unfortunate convergence of interests between travel companies' desires for business process automation and collection of marketing data, and governments' desires for surveillance and movement tracking and logging. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Air France's deployment this week, in operational beta testing, of... (...Read Entire Entry)"All Things Considered" on RFID chips in passports
Today's edition of "All Things Considered" includes a puff piece on e-passports with embedded RFID chips, based entirely on government propaganda. They quoted not a single critic of RFID chips in passports or other travel and identity documents, even though members of the public who submitted comments on the proposal... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 7 March 2009
Say it ain't so, Chuck Schwab
Following my own advice after American Express cancelled my card, I applied to Charles Schwab Bank for a new credit card to use when travelling abroad. (I used to have a different Charles Schwab Bank credit card, but it had a 3% surcharge for foreign currency transactions, and the bank... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 5 March 2009
"Notes from the Electronic Cottage"
Welcome to listeners to today's segment of Jim Campbell's "Notes from the Electronic Cottage" on community radio WERU-FM in Blue Hill and Bangor, Maine. It's archived online and worth a listen. (And it put me back in touch with a long-lost relative who now lives near Blue Hill, heard the... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 1 March 2009
AmEx cancelled my card. Now what should I do?
A week ago today I reported on the announcement by American Express of new terms effective 2 April 2009 for personal AmEx cards issued in the USA, under which, in order to obtain or retain an AmEx card, you will have to "agree" that AmEx has your "consent" to send... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 22 February 2009
Urgent warning to American Express cardholders
If you have an American Express card, you need to take action now: Unless you cancel your card and close your account, or unless AmEx is persuaded to withdraw changes it has announced (effective 2 April 2009) to the terms of its agreement with cardholders, you will be deemed to... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Drive-by reader for RFID drivers licenses and passport cards
Hacker and researcher Chris Paget has posted a viedo demonstrating what I and others have been warning people about for years: the ability to read the globally unique serial numbers on RFID chips in passport cards and electronic drivers licenses in the purses and pockets of pedestians on the street,... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 10 January 2009
How to request your travel records
[Excerpt from a simple Passenger Name Record (PNR) from the file about me kept by the CBP division of DHS. Click image for larger version. Most PNRs have more information than this. More examples and discussion of what information these records contain and how they are used.] By popular... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 8 January 2009
Quick trip to Brussels
I'll be in Brussels and Paris from January 14th through 20th to participate in the annual conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection This year's theme is "Data Protection in a Profiled World", and I'll be talking about some of the issues with surveillance and control of travelers, and the... (...Read Entire Entry)"World Travel In Troubled Economic Times"
I'll be speaking at Get Lost Travel Books in San Francisco on Thursday evening, January 22nd, on "World Travel In Troubled Economic Times": Jump-start your next international journey with this talk by Edward Hasbrouck author of "The Practical Nomad". Back in San Francisco after a 13 month, 6 continent, 80,000... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 January 2009
"The Amazing Race" resumes February 15th
I don't pick the schedule (or the contestants, despite hundreds of comments in my blog from people wanting to be in the cast), but The Amazing Race reality-TV show about travel around the world will be back for its next series much sooner than usual: the first episode of The... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Crossposting at PapersPlease.org
I'm continuing to work with the Identity Project as a technical expert, policy analyst, and consultant on travel-related civil liberties and human rights issues. I've often posted pointers here to the Identity Project blog and Web site at www.PapersPlease.org , and will probably continue to do so occasionally. But I'd... (...Read Entire Entry)Can you really see what records are kept about your travel?
One of the big differences between American and European attitudes is that people in the USA tend to be much less willing to trust that the government is doing its job in accordance with the law. Many Europeans have told me this, and it's also what I've observed in the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 17 December 2008
TSA to require bar-coded boarding passes
Buried in the notice of the final rules for the Secure Flight airline passenger ID, surveillance, and control scheme is notice that the USA Transportation Security Administrations (TSA) intends to require airlines to add machine-readable codes to all boarding passes for flights in the USA: To ensure the integrity of... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 13 November 2008
"Secure Flight" and the Right to Travel
I've been getting too many questions to answer individually about the regulations issued last week for the so-called Secure Flight program to require ID and permision for air travel in the USA: What does it mean? How will it work (and will it work)? When will it go into effect?... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 23 October 2008
Radio hour today on "Secure Flight"
I'll be on the Katherine Albrecht Show today from 2-3 p.m. Pacific time (5-6 p.m. Eastern Time, 2200-2300 GMT/UTC), talking about the final rules issued yesterday by the USA Transportation Security Administration for the Secure Flight scheme for control and surveillance of passengers on domestic airline flights in the USA.... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Secure Flight, "Watch-List Service Providers", and more
Today the TSA and DHS released their final rule for the so-called Secure Flight program to require each would-be airline passenger, even on domestic fligths within the USA, to get individualized per-person, per-flight prior permission from the TSA before they would be "allowed" to board a plane. The final Secure... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 8 August 2008
Foreigners now need USA permission to leave their home countries
Since I got home, I've spent much of my time (aside from unpacking and moving back into our house from storage) analyzing the Electronic Sysem for Travel Authroization (ESTA) and preparing formal comments on the ESTA filed this week by the Identity Project. You can read the summary or our... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Another round of illegal USA travel controls
Recently, while I've been travelling, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a press release announcing new, illegal, identity verification procedures for travellers at airports in the USA, while the DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division has published a formal proposal... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 3 February 2008
Will you really need a "Real-ID" to fly?
There's been a lot of confusion in the last few weeks as to (1) whether the USA Federal "Real-ID Act" will change the requirements for personal identification documents for airline passengers in the USA, and (2) if and when the Real-ID Act is fully implemented, will it be impossible to... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 25 January 2008
New travel document requirements for USA citizens
Under new regulations and procedures announced to take effect over the next month, citizens of the USA will, for the first time, be required to obtain USA government permission in order to return home to their own country from abroad -- from anywhere else in the world, by air or... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 20 December 2007
Back in Brussels
Six months into my current year-long trip around the world, I'm spending this week in Brussels (Belgium). Some of the high points of our trip so far include English House in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Potosi (Bolivia), driving across the Atacama Desert and down the desert coast of northern Chile, Brazilian... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 29 October 2007
Deadline for public comment on "Secure Flight" extended to 21 November
Just a quick note that by popular demand, the USA Transportation Security Administration has extended the deadline for public comments on the so-called Secure Flight scheme for surveillance and control of domestic and international travellers until 21 November 2007. You don't have to be a citizen or resident of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 21 September 2007
Results of requests for my "targeting" records
Following the disclosure in late 2006 of the USA government's illegal Automated Targeting System (ATS), which has been secretly keeping dossiers on tens of millions of innocent international travelers to and from the USA, I and several other activists requested our ATS files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 13 September 2007
Public hearing in Washington on "Secure Flight"
An obscure notice buried in the Federal Register on 5 September 2007 announced a public meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday, 20 September 2007, to hear comments on the Department of Homeland Security's "Secure Flight" scheme for additional control and monitoring of domestic air travel within the USA. The current... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 August 2007
German press on airline reservation privacy
I'm quoted at some length in this article in "heise" online (with audio) on the lack of privacy protection for PNR's (airline reservation data), especially when they are stored or processed in the USA. The article notes the problems that result when European airlines "share" data with agents, contractors, and... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 12 August 2007
ICAO schedules next workshop on RFID passports and biometrics
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has scheduled its third annual symposium on biometrics and RFID chips in passports for 1-3 October 2007 at ICAO headquarters in Montréal, Québec, Canada. ICAO has also posted the latest report of its technical advisory group (TAG) on machine readable travel documents (MRTD's), including... (...Read Entire Entry)Another USA-EU "agreement" on airline reservations
Wendy Grossman has a good story today in The Register on the latest "agreement" between the USA and the European Union on transfers of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data from the EU to the government of the USA. I haven't posted much about the latest PNR "agreement", largely because I... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 9 August 2007
Revised USA government schemes for traveller surveillance and control
Today the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the latest converging and ever-worse versions of its plans for surveillance and control of both domestic air travellers within the USA ("Secure Flight", formerly CAPPS-II) and international air and sea travellers to, from, or via the USA (the intenational "Advanced Passenger... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 8 August 2007
KLM claims it doesn't know what happens with passengers' data
In March of this year, I flew on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (one of the subsidiaries of the merged Air France KLM Group) from San Francisco to a hearing in Brussels before the European Parliament and a meeting of privacy and data protection supervisors of European Union (EU) member countries.... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 7 August 2007
"Automated Targeting System" redux
In November 2006, the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed the existence of a so-called Automated Targeting System (ATS) of lifetime government dossiers on millions of international travellers to and from the USA, including airline reservations obtained (by unspecified means) from international airlines, as well as a wide range... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 24 June 2007
USA government refuses to learn from passport problems
From the day they went into effect in January of this year, the new USA government rules requiring passports for all travel by air between the USA and Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean (even for citizens of the USA returning home from abroad) have been a disaster. I told them... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 18 May 2007
Does the Chicago Convention authorize government demands for PNR's? No.
In his testimony before the European Parliament on Monday, USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff claimed that the authority for governments to demand access to passenger name records (PNR's) is expressly provide by the Chicago Convention (the 1944 fundamental international civil aviation treaty). I was surprised by Chertoff's statement,... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 17 May 2007
Chertoff pledges to prosecute crimes against the Privacy Act
Thanks to the heroic efforts of EFF's Erik Josefsson and others in Brussels to obtain and upload gigabytes of video, I've been able to watch the entirety of USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's testimony before the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament on Monday. Chertoff's actual testimony was... (...Read Entire Entry)Who will police the privacy police?
A newly-released report by the Government Accountability Office finds that, as I've been complaining, the DHS has failed to give the public the notices required by the Privacy Act as to what information the government is keeping about U.S. citizens and residents, and how that information is being used. Without... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 15 May 2007
Did Chertoff lie to the European Parliament?
USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was in Brussels Monday to testify before a hearing of the European Parliament's LIBE [Civil Liberties] Committee about Chertoff's department's desire for access to Passenger Name Records (PNR's) for flights between the USA and the European Union. After initially trying to ignore the... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 14 May 2007
TSA shows how well it protects personal data
Public Statement on Employee Data Security Incident WASHINGTON -- On Thursday, May 3, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) became aware of a potential data security incident involving approximately 100,000 archived employment records of individuals employed by the agency from January 2002 until August 2005. An external hard drive containing personnel... (...Read Entire Entry)USA-EU "Open Skies" agreement signed but won't go to the Senate
On 30 April 2007, representatives of the USA and the European Union signed a so-called Open Skies agreement revising the rules for airline flights between the USA and the EU. As I've noted in my analysis of the agreement and in my testimony to EU legislators and data protection authorities... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 11 May 2007
While I was away
I had a great time with Evan Korth's students at NYU, and at CFP in Montréal. But the hard disk on my home computer failed while I was out of town, and I'm still working on recovering as much as possible of my data. A friendly reminder: How recent are... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 3 May 2007
"Your Reputation Precedes You" (CFP 2007)
I'm on a panel entitled "Your Reputation Precedes You: The Transfer of European Union Passenger Name Records to the U.S. and Canada" today at the conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy . Here are links to some of the topics and previous articles I may mention in my talk: Freedom... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 27 April 2007
Identity Project comments on European Union CRS regulations
I've mentioned previously that the European Commission has been conducting a public consultation on whether to revise or entirely repeal the European Union's Code of Conduct for Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS's). Because there are no similar rules in any other jursidiction, but all the major CRS's do business in the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 19 April 2007
What's wrong with "Open Skies"?
"Open" is good, right? And what could be wrong with a new civil aviation treaty between the USA and the European Union that would "liberate" trans-Atlantic flights from the bogeyman of government regulation? Actually, quite a lot is wrong with the proposed Open Skies treaty, although you wouldn't guess that... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 17 April 2007
On Internet radio Wednesday; in New York next Wednesday
I'll be talking about similar issues of privacy and travel in an Internet radio interview this Wednesday morning (18 April) and in a guest lecture at New York University next Wednesday afternoon (25 April): Wednesday, 18 April 2007: Guest on the inaugural broadcast of "Uncovering the Truth" with Katherine Albrecht... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Privacy advice for travel managers
I'm featured in the cover story on How to protect travelers' personal data on pages 28-32 of the April 2007 issue of T & E [Travel and Entertainment] Magazine , a leading trade journal for corporate travel managers. (If you don't like the funky page viewer on the magazine's Web... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 23 March 2007
European Parliament hearing on PNR's
I'm off to Brussels for this hearing on Monday (agenda , additional background documents ) on the transfer of passenger name record (PNR) data from the European union to the USA, and for a meeting of the "Article 29 Working Party" of E.U. national data protection authorities on the same... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 4 March 2007
Europe reconsidering rules for reservation systems
The European Commission (the executive branch of the European Union) has opened a two-month public consultation on possible revision or repeal of the EU Code of Conduct for Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS's). The outcome of this obscure and technical-seeming regulatory proceeding could have important effects worldwide -- not just or... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 18 February 2007
The Amazing Race 11 (All-Star Edition), Episode 1
Miami, FL (USA) - Quito (Ecuador) - Cotopaxi National Park (Ecuador) The cast of The Amazing Race , which started its new All-Star season tonight with relatively short flights from Miami to Quito, Ecuador, typically spend about two weeks of the month-long race around the world on airplanes or in... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 12 February 2007
Un/Welcome in Washington
I arrived in Washington, DC, yesterday evening (after speaking at the memorial for my dear departed friend Eric Weinberger Saturday in Boston, which made the trip to the East Coast not a complete waste) to what I can only describe as a mixed welcome. At the downtown D.C. hostel, the... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 23 January 2007
New USA passport rules frustrate last-minute travellers
Effective today, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) requires passports for all air travel between the USA, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Today the New York Times reports on the problems the new rules has caused for would-be last-minute travellers from the USA, especially business travellers, who find... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 9 January 2007
RFID passports in the wild in the USA
I've just received my first report of a regular (non-diplomatic) USA passport with an RFID chip in it (with data fields already allocated on the chip for logs of the passport holder's movements): I applied for my passport in September 2006 and received it December 07, 2006. It has the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 29 December 2006
More illegalities in the "Automated Targeting System"
Even while trying to defend the Automated Targeting System that is being used to deny travelers their rights on the basis of secret "risk assessments" that give each of us a terror score from secret databases of third-party and government information about us, the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS)... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 15 December 2006
Congress, EU, and businesses question "targetting" of travellers
Questions are beginning to be asked by members of the U.S. Senate , the European Commission , the European Parliament , and business travellers about the illegal "Automated Targeting System" (ATS) that the USA Department of Homeland Security has already used to deny more than half a million people their... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 10 December 2006
The Amazing Race 10, Episode 12
Barcelona (Spain) - Paris (France) - Caen (France) - Bayeux (France) - Paris (France) - New York, NY (USA) - Garrison, NY (USA) (Warning to readers: If you didn't like last week's column because you didn't think it had enough to do with The Amazing Race television show, you probably... (...Read Entire Entry)Half a million people denied their right to travel
As I noted in one of my previous articles about the USA Department of Homeland Security's "Automated Targeting System" (ATS): I find it somewhat strange that the assignment of scores or "risk assessments" seems to have gotten more attention than the earlier DHS announcement of its intention to require individualized... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 8 December 2006
Chertoff thinks it's "righteous" to give each traveller a terror score
Everywhere he goes this week, USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is being dogged by questions about the illegality of the Automated Targeting System (ATS) first pointed out in the comments I filed with the DHS Monday on behalf of the Identity Project . Today in Atlanta, Chertoff had... (...Read Entire Entry)USA to continue targetting travellers
By a notice today in the Federal Register , the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has resumed accepting public comments (search for docket 2006-0060, scroll through the list of documents on that docket to DHS-2006-0060-0062, and click on the "add comment" icon in the right-most column) on the Automated... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 7 December 2006
Fallout from illegal "targetting" of travellers
A Wired News story today, also picked up by Slashdot , gives the first hint of how officials of the USA Department of Homeland Security will try to rationalize having defied direct orders from Congress by developing and operating a secret "Automated Targeting System" that "builds a risk assessment for... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 3 December 2006
The Amazing Race 10, Episode 11 ("Automated Targeting System")
Ouarzazate (Morocco) - Casablanca (Morocco) - Barcelona (Spain) As The Amazing Race 10 around the world approaches its final leg, it's harmless fun to take part in the polls on the CBS Web site, where viewers score and rate which team of travellers is their favorite, which they think will... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 27 October 2006
TSA says their press releases are secret
Since being detained by police at Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC, in May of this year, I've been going through channels to find out what happened, why, and who the people were who demanded my papers, ordered me around, and called the police on me for questioning their authority. I've... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 19 October 2006
PASS card: RFID "passport light"
Aaron Caplan calls attention in a comment on an earlier article to this week's announcement by the USA Department of State of plans for a "card format passport" with a remotely-readable RFID chip. Citizens of the USA would (if, of course, other countries agree), be able to use this so-called... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Time for Europeans to ask for your travel records
In accordance with a decision made Monday, today the European Union and the USA Department of Homeland Security were expected to complete the signing of a face-saving new agreement on the use of passenger name record data by the DHS and other USA government agencies. This brings to an ignominious... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 15 October 2006
Permission to travel
Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?") The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights,... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 1 October 2006
Airlines and CRS's violating European privacy laws -- again
At midnight last night a decision of the European Court of Justice announced in May took effect, annulling both the "finding" by the European Council that airline reservation data transferred to the USA is protected adequately to satisfy European Union (EU) privacy and data protection rules, and the nonbinding "agreement"... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 28 September 2006
Governments prepare to log travellers' movements on passport chips
Earlier this month -- before being sidetracked with other deadlines , the start of a new season of The Amazing Race , and major electrical work on my house that made it hard to get any work done for the last week -- I attended a Symposium on Machine-Readable Travel... (...Read Entire Entry)Traveller registration redux
Depite a lack of enthusiasm by anyone except the vendors who hope to profit from operating a privatized traveller registration scheme, and total costs estimated at anywhere between US$100 and US$200 per person per year, the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has published yet another round of draft plans and... (...Read Entire Entry)"Kip Hawley is an idiot."
On Monday the USA Transportation Security Administration revised its ever-changing but still secret rules (check out this parody if you want to try to keep track of the changes) for what it will allow airline passengers to carry onto planes. According to the offiical announcement by Kip Hawley, the Assistant... (...Read Entire Entry)Passports for travel between the USA, Canada, Mexico, etc.
If the USA government has its way, all citizens of the USA -- regardless of age, dual citizenship, etc. -- will need U.S. passports for air travel between the USA and all other countries in the Western Hemisphere, effective 8 January 2007. No more trips by air or sea across... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 14 September 2006
USA-EU dispute over PNR access escalates
While I was at the ICAO symposium on RFID passports (more on that anon -- and yes, I did get back to San Francisco well before yesterday's tragedy in downtown Montréal, just a few blocks from where I'd been), the ongoing trans-Atlantic debate on the use of data from airline... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 30 August 2006
I'm off to Montréal as an observer on behalf of the Identity Project at next week's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Symposium on Machine-Readable Travel Documents (MRTD's, a/k/a passports and visas in which are embedded secretly and remotely readable RFID chips). So far as I can tell, this will be... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 August 2006
USA denies its citizens their right of return
The government is preventing a native-born citizen of this country from returning home to the USA from overseas: U.S. Blocks Men's Return to California From Pakistan (New York Times, 29 August 2006) Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, was questioned by the F.B.I. at the American Embassy... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 28 August 2006
Fingerprints, photographs, and dossiers on USA "green card" holders
Today I filed comments with the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of The Identity Project formally objecting to the DHS proposal that the fingerprinting, photographing, and logging of lifetime personal travel histories of visitors to the USA be expanded to include even lawful permanent residents of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 24 August 2006
European debate on airline reservation data
Government mandates for collection of, access to, and transfer to the USA of information from airline passenger name records (PNR's) are once again on the table in the European Union, with a European court decision annulling the present EU-USA agreement on PNR data transfers and a new EU directive on... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 18 August 2006
Freedom to travel as a human right
Several students at my introductory talk on "Travel Writing and the Travel Industry" at the 15th annual Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference this weekend asked about the sources I quoted on freedom to travel as a human right. The U.S. Constitution only hints at travel in the First... (...Read Entire Entry)What's on the horizon in travel security/surveillance?
I've spent a lot of time this week answering questions from other journalists about every aspect of air travel, from the most significant to the most mundane. Here's a sampling: Anti-terror hassles may keep travelers off planes (by Chris Welsch, Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday travel section, 13 August 2006): Even... (...Read Entire Entry)Airlines and CRS's squabble over who owns travellers' reservations
An important series of investigative reports by my friend and respected trade journalist Dennis Schaal in the past week in Travel Weekly (free registration and cookie acceptance required) has exposed a significant spat between American Airlines (IATA code AA) and the Sabre computerized reservation system or CRS (a/k/a "global distribution... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 9 August 2006
USA Supreme Court asked to rule on secrecy of law restricting freedom of travel
A petition for certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court last Friday in the case of Gilmore v. Gonzales , asking the court to rule on whether "the government keep secret a directive that is generally applicable to millions of passengers every day", requiring them to present documentary evidence... (...Read Entire Entry)RFID passports cloned and shown to be poorly shielded
I wasn't there, but at a hacker conference last weekend in Las Vegas, two different security research groups publicly demonstrated major vulnerabilities in the RFID passports now beginning to be issued by the USA and many other countries. Using a new German passport (based on the same ISO14443 and ICAO... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 1 August 2006
"Papers, please!"
Effective today, in addition to my ongoing writing for my books and this Web site and my other activities, I'm joining the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org) of the First Amendment Project as a travel expert and consultant. I'm delighted to be joining the IDP team of friends, with whom I look... (...Read Entire Entry)ICAO acknowledges risks of RFID passport "session keys"
I've noted previously that one of the most significant risks of secretly and remotely-readable Radio-Frequency Identification chips in passports -- even after the changes made to the State Department's original plans for RFID chips in USA passports -- is the potential for the unique chip ID numbers used as "session... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 28 July 2006
TSA report on what happened to me at Dulles Airport
In response to my requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, I've received a copy of the USA Transportation Security Administration's Incident Report on my detention, interrogation, and search for asking questions of the people demanding identification credentials of prospective passengers between the airline check-in counter... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 21 July 2006
Why was I detained by police at Dulles Airport?
It appears that even the FBI isn't sure what, if any, legal basis local law enforcement officers have for detentions of passengers at airports, such as I experienced in May at Dulles Airport, even when (as I don't think was the case with me) the would-be traveller is supected of... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 19 July 2006
DHS (doesn't) want comments on costs of passenger manifest rules
A week ago, The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of the USA Department of Homeland Security announced proposed new rules to require international airlines flying to, from, or even over the USA to give the CBP complete passenger and crew manifests between 15 minutes and an hour before push-back... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 16 July 2006
Dialogue with the TSA Privacy Officer
From: Edward Hasbrouck "firstname.lastname@example.com" To: Pietra, Peter, TSA OCC "email@example.com" Subject: Re: Follow-up to our conversation in San Francisco Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:33:24 -0700 On 10 Jul 2006 at 14:32, Pietra, Peter, TSA OCC "firstname.lastname@example.com" wrote: [Pietra:] As promised, I've looked into the incident you mentioned to me.... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 18 June 2006
GAO auditors still grade Secure Flight "incomplete"
In testimony this week to Congress, USA government auditors from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reiterated their earlier testimony to another Congressional hearing in February 2006: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) still hasn't met any of the prerequisites set by Congress before the airline passenger "screening" and tracking scheme could... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 13 June 2006
Airlines object to traveller registration scheme
In a 1 June 2006 public letter to airport directors throughout the USA, the Air Transport Association of airlines based in the USA has reiterated that ATA's "member carriers remain oppsed to the RT [registered traveler] program as it is currently being developed , and urge that you [i.e. airports]... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 9 June 2006
Privacy advice to the Department of Homeland Security
Although most of the nine slots for "public" comments were taken by industry and corporate spokespeople, I did arrive early enough to get three minutes to deliver my extremely condensed and telegraphic testimony at Wednesday's hearing before the USA Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity [Advisory] Committee. For... (...Read Entire Entry)AIRIMP requires airlines to accept more detailed passenger data
Two years ago airline associations in the USA (ATA) and internationally (IATA) jointly amended the specifications for the 28th edition of the "ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures - Passenger" (AIRIMP) protocol to support, for the first time, transmission between airlines and reservation systems of detailed personally identified information (address, contact... (...Read Entire Entry)Expedia auditors lose laptop with customer credit card numbers
After it was reported in the press beginning last Friday, Expedia, Inc. (parent company of Expedia.com, Expedia.ca, .Expedia.co.uk, Expedia.de, Expedia.fr, Expedia.it, Expedia.nl, Hotwire.com, and Hotels.com, among other divisions and subsidiaries), admitted that a laptop computer containing (unencrypted) records on almost a quarter of a million Hotels.com customers, including names and... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 June 2006
DHS Privacy Committee hearing in San Francisco today
As I noted here two weeks ago, the USA Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee holds it's first-ever public hearing in San Francisco today at the Clift Hotel (Ava and Rita Rooms), 495 Geary Street, 2 blocks from Union Square. It's an all-day meeting, from 8:30... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 6 June 2006
Unanswered questions at Dulles Airport
Since I write about the "how's" and "how-to's" of travel, every trip I take is a busman's holiday. Even on vacation, I'm always making mental notes, sometimes writing them down, occasionally taking photos, and often asking questions about the meaning of what I see happening. Like most travel writers, I... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 30 May 2006
EU- USA "agreement" and "findings" on airline reservation data transfers are invalid
As had been expected and as the Court's own "Advocate General" (investigating magistrate) had recommended , the Court of Justice of the European Community today ruled in two cases brought by the European Parliament, annulling both the agreement with the USA entered into by the European Commission to permit access... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 22 May 2006
Can I still get a USA passport without an RFID chip?
Lately more and more of my friends have been asking if there's still time to get a new or renewal USA passport before they all start being issued with embedded RFID chips that can't be disabled without invalidating the passport . Maybe, but you can no longer count on not... (...Read Entire Entry)"National Strategy To Combat Terrorist Travel"
For several years I and other travel privacy watchdogs been arguing that the goal of the USA government and its allies has become the creation -- in part, through the compelled conversion of existing travel information technology and operational infrastructure -- of a comprehensive system of surveillance of personal movement,... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 21 May 2006
Decision due 30 May 2006 on USA-EU "agreement" on airline passenger data
The Court of Justice of the European Communities has posted a schedule for the announcement 30 May 2006 of the court's decision on two lawsuits brought by the European Parliament two years ago against the European Commission and Council, challenging the validity of the finding that personal data in airline... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 May 2006
Identity theft from a discarded boarding pass
This week the Guardian (U.K.) newspaper picked up a story I first reported five years ago, describing how they were able to obtain an unsuspecting traveller's airline profile and personal data, using only the information on a discarded airline boarding pass stub. Exactly four years ago, I filed my first... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 26 April 2006
The Amazing Race 9, Episode 8 ("Registered Traveler")
Nizwa (Oman) - Perth (Australia) - Fremantle (Australia) - Rottnest Island (Australia) - Fremantle (Australia) Quick: What's the fastest way to get from Muscat to Perth? Sometimes there are many possible flight connections from point A to point B, and often the fastest or best route is less than obvious,... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 18 April 2006
TSA picks new propagandist and privacy director
This month the USA Transportation Secuirty Administration (TSA) has announced the appointment of new directors of its public relations and privacy offices. (The actual effective dates of the appointments weren't announced.) It's hard to find people willing to lie for a living, as has been routine for TSA and DHS... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 14 April 2006
Secretary of Homeland Security admits doubts on background checks
"I don't know ... that background checks ... will predict future behavior." (USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, quoted in an Associated Press story in the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle . Thanks to Adam Shostack for bringing this to my attention.)... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 March 2006
European legislators challenge secrecy of report on PNR privacy
In May 2004, when the European Commission approved turning over PNR data from European Union airline reservations to the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its approval was conditioned on DHS agreement to permit annual joint audits and reports, by the EU and the USA, on compliance with the restrictions... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 14 March 2006
What's behind the TSA's witness tampering?
Google TSA lawyers and one of my blog posts is the first search result. So CNN called me this morning to ask what I know about the USA Transportation Security Administration lawyer, Carla J. Martin, who was caught coaching witnesses on what testimony they should give in the court hearing... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 3 March 2006
Who is watching the watchers?
FBI takes airport spy devices (by Mark-Alexander Pieper, [Guam] Pacific Daily News, 4 March 2006): FBI agents have taken custody of mini-surveillance cameras and listening devices found Thursday at the island's airport.... Several listening devices and at least three small cameras were found after the Guam Department of Customs and... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 15 February 2006
No refund on Northwest Airlines if you won't produce ID
I mentioned in a recent article that airlines' rules explicitly require them to give you a full and unconditional refund -- even if your ticket was otherwise compeletely nonrefundable -- if they refuse to transport you because (among other reasons) you refuse to permit your person or belongings to be... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 9 February 2006
USA Senate hearing on "Registered Traveler" and "Secure Flight"
The full USA Senate Commitee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is finally holding a hearing this morning -- originally scheduled for last month -- on the Transportation Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security proposals for traveller registration ("Registered Travaler", previously "Trusted Traveler") and for surveillance and tracking of airline... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 1 February 2006
RFID passport logo (or "mark of the beast"?)
How can you tell if your passport contains an RFID chip? Look for this logo on the label: If there's an RFID chip in your passport , identity thieves, terrorists, direct marketers, data aggregators, malicious governments, or anyone else with a radio receiver within 10 meters (30+ feet) or more... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 30 January 2006
Encrypted RFID passport data intercepted and cracked
A Dutch television news program has commissioned experiments by security research firm Riscure in which radio communications between the RFID chip in a prototype Dutch passport (using the same technology and encryption scheme recently adopted as an international standard and being deployed in USA passports) were intercepted, stored for analysis... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 27 January 2006
USA Court of Appeals ruling on airline ID requirements
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, here in San Francisco, released its decision in Gilmore vs. Gonzales , the federal lawsuit challenging the secret USA Federal "security directive" which requires ... well, we still don't know what it actually requires, even after the court reviewed it... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 24 January 2006
New excuse for travel surveillance: medical quarantine
Public comments are due by 17:00 (5 p.m.) Washington time (GMT - 5) next Monday, 30 January 2006, on the latest proposal from the USA government for mandatory surveillance of travellers' movements. I've been puzzling for weeks about how to respond. The current proposal (70 Federal Register 71892-71948, 30 November... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 17 January 2006
USA government goal: Gather and use "Travel Intelligence"
At a joint news conference today in Washington, DC, USA Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a joint vision to "Develop and use 'Travel Intelligence' before travelers arrive" in the USA (and after, it appears from the descriptions of the planned programs). It's... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 8 December 2005
Appeals Court hearing on airline ID requirement
As I mentioned yesterday, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argument this morning in Gilmore vs. Gonzales (originally Gilmore vs. Ashcroft ), the U.S. Federal case challenging the secrecy and the legality of the requirement for would-be travellers to "show ID" (a surprisingly ambiguous phrase) as a... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 December 2005
Court hearings and rallies this week for the right to travel
Thursday morning, 8 December 2005, in San Francisco the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals at 95-7th Street (the ornate old former Post Office at the corner of 7th and Mission Streets, across from the new Federal Courthouse under construction on the site of the former Greyhound bus station), Courtroom 3,... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 27 November 2005
Travel ID events at MIT, 5 December 2005
I won't be able to attend (I'll just be getting back from the ICANN meeting in Vancouver, Canada, where I hope to raise the issue of .travel ), but there will be two potentially very interesting gatherings, probably attended by some of the same people, at MIT on Monday, 5... (...Read Entire Entry)EU Court advisory opinion against USA access to airline reservation data
In his advisory opinion on a lawsuit initiated in June 2004 by the European Parliament, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has recommended that the Court annull both the agreement by the Council of the European Union to permit access by certain USA government agencies to airline... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 25 October 2005
The Amazing Race 8 (Family Edition), Episode 5 (RFID passports)
New Orleans, LA (USA) - Panama City (Panama) Just when the families on The Amazing Race 8 finally left the USA in tonight's episode, the USA Department of State today took the latest in its recent series of regulatory actions to make it more difficult for other families like them... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 7 October 2005
"Spot the Terrorist"
USA-EU dual citizen and fellow CFP-er Wendy Grossman has more on the new demands for passenger information by the USA government and airlines, as well as the latest USA plans for a Ministry of Silly Walks , in her net.wars column here and here : Spot the Terrorist ... Some... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 4 October 2005
USA requires passenger details from international airlines
Effective today airlines, cruise ships, and other vessels operating on international routes to or from the USA are required to provide the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS), electronically, in a standard format, with detailed information on all passengers and crew members,... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 28 September 2005
"International Perspectives on Privacy and Homeland Security"
Today the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee is meeting in Bellingham, WA. Immediately preceding the presentation on Secure Flight by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agenda includes a presentation on "International Perspective on Privacy and Homeland Security" from the office of... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 26 September 2005
Update on traveller registration programs
Just as the deployment of the Secure Flight airline passenger surveillance and screening program continues to be described as a "test" to evade Congressional restrictions on its deployment on other than a test basis , so a scheme to treat as second-class travellers those airline passengers who don't "voluntarily" register... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 22 September 2005
Whither "Secure Flight"?
As of today, there's still been no official announcement from the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) or its parent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concerning their plans for the Secure Flight airline passenger screening and surveillance system. Earlier reports had suggested that the TSA/DHS would publish a Privacy Act... (...Read Entire Entry)United Airlines to move its reservation database to Amadeus
United Airlines will be moving its reservation database to a computerized reservation system (CRS/GDS) based in the European Union, according to a joint announcement by United Airlines , Amadeus , and the Star Alliance . The move to a new host for United's database of passenger name records (PNR's) is... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 22 August 2005
Last-minute lobbying on California RFID bill
"Silicon Valley tech companies have launched an 11th-hour bid to stop state legislation" to regulate the use of secretly and remotely-readable RFID chips in identification documents issued by the state government of California, according to a report today in the San Jose Business Journal . Despite being limited to California,... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 20 August 2005
ICAO standards and Chicago Convention amended to require machine-readable passports by 2010
A new "technical Standard 3.10" adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and a parallel Amendment 19 to Annex 9 of the Chicago Convention on Internatonal Civil Aviation (one of the two main multilateral treaties governing international air transportation) took effect 11 July 2005 to require all passports issued... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 19 August 2005
Update on RFID passports and traveller tracking
The USA State Department's Passport Office has already issued some RFID passports to airline employees and plans to start issuing RFID passports to USA diplomats by the end of 2005 and to the general public in February 2006, according to August 2005 press reports. The State Department claims to have... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 18 August 2005
Update on "Secure Flight"
This summer there's been both a public sideshow about (relatively) minor privacy and legal violations by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in its ongoing testing of the "Secure Flight" airline passenger screening and surveillance scheme, and a larger unreported story of much more fundamental illegality and privacy invasion. In... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 26 April 2005
International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance
An International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance was launched 20 April 2005 in London, Manila, Ottawa and Washington,with initial endorsements on its declaration from almost one hundred groups from around the world. The introduction and detailed White Paper on the campaign's Web site speak for themselves, specifically in highlighting the significnace... (...Read Entire Entry)Follow-up to CFP debate on RFID passports
Lots of continuing reports and fallout from the panel and subsequent discussions on RFID chips in passports last week at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference: Fed and activist:, Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference, Seattle, 2005: One man is balding, liverspotted, tie-wearing, and shouting. The other is wearing a long... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 17 April 2005
RFID passports at CFP
The next move is the RFID-enabled passport, which this week has provided the classic Computers, Freedom, and Privacy blood-on-the-carpet moments and which garnered for itself a couple of Big Brother Award nominations. The personae: Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the Department of State, and, among others,... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 12 April 2005
Travel ID and the Travel Panopticon
Photo thanks to Fred Carter, Pyrik Photography Linked below are the handout and notes from my presentation on "Travel ID and the Travel Panopticon" during today's workshop, "Keeping an Eye on the Panopticon: Vanishing Anonymity" at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2005 conference in Seattle: Handout: Chapter on Travel... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 5 April 2005
Comments on USA rules for RFID passports
Yesterday was the deadline for comments on the USA Department of State's proposed rules for RFID passports: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): Comments and background documents Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), PrivacyActivism, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, World Privacy Forum, and Bill Scannell: Comments (including extremely deatiled technical... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 March 2005
Auditors question TSA use of airline reservations
Two reports by different sets of internal USA government auditors have questioned the appropriateness and legality, and revealed more details, about past, present, and proposed uses by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of airline reservation data for "passenger screening" and other purposes. On Friday, 25 March 2005, the (acting)... (...Read Entire Entry)Deadlines loom for RFID tracking chips in USA passports
There's still time for USA citizens to get a new passport without an embedded RFID remote tracking chip -- but if you want one, you should apply at once. The Department of State is moving as fast as it can (slowed down only by technical difficulties -- RFID chips are... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 20 March 2005
FBI releases details of its files of airline reservations
I've been meaning to comment on two documents released by the USA Federal Bureau of Investigation in January 2005, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by EPIC , giving details of the data from airline reservations collected by the FBI during its "PENTTBOMB" criminal investigation of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 17 March 2005
"Identification and Anonymity of Travellers" at CFP
The program for this year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference 12-15 April in Seattle has been posted. I'll be giving a presentation on "Identification and Anonymity of Travellers" as part of an all-day workshop on "Vanishing Anonymity" organized by The Anonymity Project on Tuesday, 12 April. The workshop, and the... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 13 December 2004
RFID and biometric passports move forward despite objections
Despite increasingly visible outcry against them both in the USA and Europe, RFID pssports including digitally encoded biometric data (such as fingerprints, photos, and/or iris scans) are moving toward adoption and deployment on both sides of the Atlantic. In the USA, the ACLU has posted excerpts on its passport Web... (...Read Entire Entry)"Privacy and Human Rights 2004" published
Privacy International international.org and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have released their annual Privacy and Human Rights 2004 yearbook, including an entirely new chapter on Privacy and Travel of which I was the principal author (with several other significant contributors). Given book production schedules, it's inevitable that some important... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 12 December 2004
Congress enacts comprehensive travel surveillance law
This Tuesday, 7 December 2004, as its final act before adjourning until after newly-elected members take office in January, the lame-duck Congress of the USA gave final approval for the creation of a comprehensive system of government credentialling, tracking, and control of domestic and international travellers, as part of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 12 November 2004
TSA orders USA airlines to turn over June 2004 reservations
The USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today issued an order to all airlines based in the USA to turn over to the TSA, by 23 November 2004, passenger name records (PNR's) including data on flights in June 2004 for testing of the TSA's Secure Flight airline passenger identification, surveillance, and... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 11 November 2004
Does "behaviorial profiling" have to be racist to be wrong?
The widely-reprinted Associated Press report about the lawsuit filed yesterday against warrantless interrogations, demands for identification credentials, and detentions at Boston's Logan International Airport (IATA code "BOS"), as well as the editorial on the case in the Boston Globe this morning, discuss the lawsuit solely in terms of whether "behavioral... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 10 November 2004
ACLU files suit against "behavioral profiling" at Logan Airport
Keeping itself, and Massachusetts, on the cutting edge of the litigation over police searches, seizures, and interrogations of travellers, as well as police denials of access to public and/or common carrier transportation, the ACLU of Massachusetts has filed suit against Massport (the Massachusetts Port Authority, operator of Boston's Logan Airport)... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 9 November 2004
OMB approves data demand for "Secure Flight" testing
The USA Presidential Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved the proposed order from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to USA-based airlines requiring them to turn over all data in PNR's (reservations) that included flights within the USA in June 2004 for use in testing of the TSA's Secure... (...Read Entire Entry)First public peek at the work of the TSA "Ombudsman"
At the first court hearing last Thursday on the legality of so-called "No-Fly" and "Selectee" watch lists provided (secretly) to airlines by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and (secret) orders to airlines as to how they are to use these lists as the basis of disparate treatment or denial... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 7 November 2004
What's next for "Secure Flight" testing?
Two week's after the close the public comment period on testing of the USA Transportation Security Administration's (TSA's) proposed Secure Flight airline passenger "screening" scheme, there's been no comment from the TSA on when or if the tests will actually begin. Presumably, the next steps would be the award of... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 4 November 2004
Iran to join reciprocal fingerprinting of USA visitors
On the 25th anniversary of the takeover of the Embassy of the USA in Teheran, Iran , a bill to require fingerprinting of all USA citizens visiting Iran has been approved by a committee of Iran's parliament, and appears headed for enactment. Iran thus moves toward joining Brazil as the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 November 2004
Hearing in Seattle on challenge to no-fly list
For the first time ever, lawyers for the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will appear in court tomorrow in Seattle to try to defend their (still largely secret) procedures for the compilation and use by the TSA, law enforcement agencies, and airlines of "No-Fly" and "selectee" watch lists. In the... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 2 November 2004
New York Times on "Getting off a watch list"
Christopher Elliott reports today in the business section of the New York Times that, Getting Off a Security Watch List Is the Hard Part (free registration and cookie acceptance required): There is no way to find out if you are on the list until you check in for a flight.... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 29 October 2004
EU follows USA on surveillance of travellers
In a "race to the bottom" on protection of the right to travel and of travellers' privacy, the European Union is following the lead of the USA in mandating the construction -- in part through the use and conversion of existing travel industry systems -- of a comprehensive infrastructure of... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 27 October 2004
"Registered Terrorists"
Even the business travellers on whom the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had undoubtedly counted for support of the TSA's Registered Traveler scheme -- one prong, along with Secure Flight as the other, of the bifurcated reincarnation of the CAPPS-II airline passenger surveillance, profiling, and monitoring system -- are turning... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 25 October 2004
Comments on "Secure Flight" testing and data dump
The public comment period on testing of the the proposed Secure Flight airline passenger surveillance and monitoring system intended as part of the replacement for CAPPS-II , and on a proposed order to airlines based in the USA to turn over all PNR's from June 2004 flights, closed today. My... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 15 October 2004
RFID passport data won't be encrypted
Contrary to what I wrote yesterday , the identification and biometric (digital photograph) data on RFID passports in the USA will not be encrypted. Jay Stanley of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program describes what they were told in a briefing by Frank Moss, USA Deputy Assistant Secretary of State... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 14 October 2004
Time to get a new USA passport
Contracts were awarded today to Axalto and three other teams of vendors for the addition of secretly and remotely-readable radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips embedded in the photo and information page (inside front cover) of all new USA passports. In accordance with the timeline in the Request For Proposals , the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 13 October 2004
USA airports and TSA adopt Israeli-style profiling
By the end of this month, USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at two or more airports in the northeastern USA (presumably Boston's Logan International Airport, IATA code BOS, and at least one other as yet unnamed airport) are preparing to start Israeli-style profiling, stops, and questioning of airline passengers... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 12 October 2004
Coalition opposes restrictions on travel freedom and privacy
Congressional debate on bills purporting to "implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission" has bogged down in disputes between the different bills passed by the House and the Senate, and over their provisions to legalize in the USA what is being called, in Orwell-speak, extraordinary rendition , by which is... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 10 October 2004
TSA revives dormant air transport industry advisory panel
The largely-dormant Transportation Security Advisory Committee to the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which was originally established by the TSA's predecessor, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the Department of Transportation (DOT), met on 30 September 2004 for the first time in 10 months. The interval was pretty typical, although... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 9 October 2004
"Secure Flight" comments due by Monday, 25 October 2004
Public comments are open through Monday, 25 October 2004, on the Secure Flight airline passenger identification, selection, and surveillance system proposed by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and its Office of National Risk Assessment (ONRA). Together, the Secure Flight and Registered Traveler programs are intended to replace, and considerably... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 8 October 2004
TSA requests bids for "Secure Flight" tests
As of this week, the USA Transportation Security Administration is officially soliciting bids from would-be prime contractors for testing the Secure Flight airline passenger identification and selection system propsoed as a replacement for the supposedly-abandoned CAPPS-II passenger profiling scheme (bid solicitation reference number "HSTS04-04-R-SECFLIGHT"). The introductory synopsis to the TSA... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 5 October 2004
Ferry passenger searches challenged
A Vermont commuter who has been required to submit to warrantless, suspicionless searches of his car and belongings as a condition of travel on ferries across Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York has filed a Federal lawsuit , with the assistance of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU, against... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 4 October 2004
German privacy czar recommends minimizing data in PNR's
Interviewed for a feature on US-VISIT ( Kontrolle, Kontrolle, Kontrolle ), German data protection commissioner Peter Schaar recommends that travellers to the USA put only the minimum of essential and required information in their reservations ( PNR's ), to minimize the potential for misuse of personal data by authorities in... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 1 October 2004
UK announces "Semaphore" traveller surveillance scheme
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair this week announced the UK counterpart of the US-VISIT, CAPPS-II, and Registered Traveler programs in the USA: the co-called "Semaphore" program. It its official statement on the "Semaphore" program, the UK Home Office is much more forthright about its intentions than the USA Department of... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 30 September 2004
US-VISIT tracking extended to all except USA and Canadian citizens
Effective today, the US-VISIT program of fingerprinting, photographing, and compilation of lifetime travel dossiers on visitors to the USA will be extended to everyone crossing the borders of the USA except for citizens of the USA and Canada. When the US-VISIT program went into effect at the start of this... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 September 2004
TSA reveals some details of Secure Flight
The USA Transportation Security Administration today released drafts of its first official descriptions of the Secure Flight airline passenger surveillance, monitoring, and no-fly system According to today's TSA press release , the TSA intends to publish all of these in the Federal Register tomorrow: A Notice of Proposed Rule-Making from... (...Read Entire Entry)No mention of "Secure Flight" in Ridge talks with the EU
With an announcement of more details about the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Secure Flight passenger surveillance and no-fly scheme imminent, and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge in Europe for talks with European Union (EU) leaders on the use of airline passenger data by his Department of Homeland Security... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 20 September 2004
"Secure Flight" to be subject to same oversight as CAPPS-II
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the USA have approved identical language for inclusion in the "Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005", H.R. 4567, that would subject the USA Transportation Security Administration's Secure Flight air traveller surveillance and no-fly scheme to the same Congressional and Government... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 19 September 2004
USA Dept. of Transportation dismisses complaint against Northwest Airlines for breach of privacy and lying
In an order of 10 September 2004, the USA Department of Transportation (DOT) has dismissed a complaint and request for enforcement action brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center against Northwest Airlines (IATA airline code "NW"). According to the complaint, NW: has engaged in an unfair and deceptive practice by... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 10 September 2004
Senators propose sweeping "travel surveillance" scheme
On Tuesday, 7 September 2004, Democratic U.S. Senator Lieberman and Republican Senator McCain introduced S. 2774, a bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004 (this link is for the draft of the bill as initially introduced; you can check the status of the bill and any amendments or revisions:... (...Read Entire Entry)Another airline bankruptcy may be imminent
Rumors of an immiment major airline bankrupcy once again abound, with the New York Times reporting this morning that "US Airways appears all but certain to seek bankruptcy protection on Sunday". I've once again updated my FAQ on Airline Bankruptcies with the details on what this means for travellers, and... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 9 September 2004
Army says use of jetBlue reservations didn't violate Privacy Act
Wired News reporter Ryan Singel has posted a partially-censored copy he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act of the report of the U.S. Army Inspector General on the use of JetBlue Airways' entire reservation archive by a Total Terrorism Information Awareness program military subcontractor. The Inspector General's office concludes... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 8 September 2004
Ridge admits all air travellers may have to register with the government
Confirming what many of us have already inferred , USA Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said yesterday, in response to questions following a speach at the National Press Club, that all would-be airline travellers may eventually be required to register with the Department of Homeland Security, eliminating any claim... (...Read Entire Entry)New blog by Ryan Singel
My neighbor Ryan Singel, who has been doing some of the most in-depth investigative reporting on airline "secuirty", privacy, and civil liberites, has started a new blog at SecondaryScreening.net . Subtitled, "A closer look at anti-terrorism, privacy and data mining", it includes links to his stories on Wired News as... (...Read Entire Entry)Appeal of decision on airline ID demands
The pending Federal court case challenging the secrecy of U.S. government orders requiring airline passengers to display identification credentials (or be denied common carrier transportation or subjected to more intrusive search), the secret procedure through which these orders were issued, and their Constitutionality has now been appealed to the Circuit... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 7 September 2004
"Secure Flight" succeeds CAPPS-II
On 26 August 2004, the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that the latest version of its airline passenger "screening" (identification, profiling, surveillance, and control) scheme will henceforth be referred to by the TSA as "Secure Flight", rather than as CAPPS-II . Few details about "Secure Flight" were provided in... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 12 August 2004
Congress sets hearings on transportation security
The Committees on Transportation of the USA Senate and House of Representatives have scheduled hearings Monday, August 16th in the Senate and August 25th in the House to condsider the recommnedations of the 9/11 Commission on aviation and transportation security . I expect that the public face of The Program... (...Read Entire Entry)AIRIMP adds support for additional passenger data
I've mentioned previously that airlines and computerized reservation systems (CRS's) don't have fields in their databases of passenger name records (PNR's) to accommodate the additional advance passenger information (API) data increasingly being requested by the USA and other governments for CAPPS-II and other "travel inteeligence gathering' programs, such as a... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 11 August 2004
Ridge: "Aggressive schedule" for new CAPPS-II
In an interview yesterday, USA Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reportedly said that The Program No Longer Known As CAPPS-II will be rolled out today in a (secret, of course) meeting with other "security" (but not civil liberties) agencies: Ridge spoke about screening Tuesday at a meeting with USA... (...Read Entire Entry)"This 'Privocrat' Believes In the Freedom to Travel"
Today the Wall Street Journal published my letter in reply to last week's ad hominem attack on their op-ed page: This 'Privocrat' Believes in the Freedom to Travel In regard to Heather Mac Donald's Aug. 5 editorial-page commentary "Hijacked by the 'Privocrats'": Whatever Ms. Mac Donald means by calling me... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 10 August 2004
9/11 Commission recommends "Targeting travel"
Back in April, the USA Department of Homeland Security announced plans for a Data Integrity, Privacy, and Interoperability Advisory Committee . I applied, naturally, and this month got a letter from the DHS Privacy Office saying that, "We anticipate that recommendations for consideration will be submitted to the Office of... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 9 August 2004
ACLU targets airlines' role in the "Surveillance-Industrial Complex"
A new No Spy Pledge campaign announced today by the ACLU targets airlines and other travel companies as key retail businesses involved in the emerging "Surveillance-Industrial Complex" described in an ACLU report released in conjunction with the launch of the campaign. I highly recommend the report as an overview of... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 5 August 2004
CAPPS-II defenders won't give up
I'm denounced on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal today (and in a slightly different version on their Web site) as a "leading advocate" for travellers' civil liberties. I'll take the compliment. The late Dave Dellinger (who led massive anti-war demonstrations outside the White House while President Nixon... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 28 July 2004
"Identity is Front and Center at the Airport"
Bruce Schneier and I are quoted extensively in Michael Pastore's lead story today at InsideID.com, focusing on the key concept that, "Security in American airports is essentially an identity issue." Excerpts: Leading the fight against CAPPS II were the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and... (...Read Entire Entry)CAPPS-II overseer finally gets the spotlight
In November 2003 I reported on the skeletons in the closet of Stephen Thayer, who has been acting director of the Transportation Security Administration's Office of National Risk Assessment (ONRA) since the retirement in February 2004 of former ONRA Director (and architect of CAPPS-II) Ben H. Bell, Jr. (I've also... (...Read Entire Entry)Preliminary injunction against MBTA bag searches denied
The motion for a preliminary injunction against searches MBTA passengers' baggage without warrants or particularized suspicion was denied this morning, after yesterday's oral argument , according to the AP. No meaningful appeal is possible, since the issues had been narrowed (whether by the judge or by consent of the parties... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 27 July 2004
Federal judge takes MBTA passenger searches "under advisement"
Suspicionless Searches vs. Different Times (from Reinvented.net, reporting on this hearing ) It's unclear from this account whether the discrepancies between MBTA claims about "random" searches at the entrances to MBTA "paid" areas, and the reality of searches of passengers already in paid areas or even on moving trains ,... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 26 July 2004
Hearing tomorrow on challenge to MBTA dragnet
U.S. District Court Judge George A. O'Toole has scheduled an emergency hearing tomorrow, Tuesday, 27 July 2004 on the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction against unwarranted searches without probable cause of passengers on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) public transit system. The case filed today is American Arab... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 23 July 2004
NLG to challenge MBTA searches
Press release today from the National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter (reproduced here in full as not yet available on the NLG chapter Web site): Contact: Michael Avery, NLG [National] President, 617-335-5023 Urszula Masny-Latos, Director, NLG Massachusetts Chapter, 617-227-7335 NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD FILES LAWSUIT TO CHALLENGE MBTA SEARCH POLICY Boston --... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 22 July 2004
False, incomplete "Privacy Statement" on PNR access by USA Homeland Security Dept.
The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a Customs and Border Protection Privacy Statement For PNR Data Received in Connection with Flights Between the U.S. and the European Union that grossly misstates the actual content and usage of the data in passenger name records (PNR's), and misleadingly fails... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 21 July 2004
ACLU asks Ridge, "Is CAPPS-II Dead?" and "What's Next?"
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter yesterday to Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, asking: is personal information collected for CAPPS II testing purposes being retained, and if so for what purpose and in what form will it be retained?; has any other data from Passenger Name... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 19 July 2004
Diplomatic protests at DHS orders against Pakistani-Americans
The recent orders from the USA Department of Homeland Security to its immigration inspectors to give "special" scrutiny at borders and ports to arriving Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans, including citizens of the USA of Pakistani "descent" like me (my mother was a child of American expatriates born in what is now... (...Read Entire Entry)European privacy authorities respond to EU decision on PNR access by the USA
The European Union's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party -- the organization of national privacy protection officers from each EU member country -- has adopted an official response to the European Commission's finding and agreement to permit the USA government to access airline reservations from the EU, which are currently... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 18 July 2004
Editorial calls for new travel privacy law
Editorial reaction to the latest changes in the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring system has varied, from USA Today's Good riddance to the Boston Herald's Al-Qaeda wins one in the war on terror . Wired News features ex-National Security Agency agent Bill Scannell in The Man Who Helped Kill... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 16 July 2004
"Throw Momma from the train" (reprise)
My entry, Throw Momma from the train? inspired my real momma , Marguerite Helen (who can't drive, and rides the trains a lot, including MBTA rapid treansit and commuter trains and Amtrak), to write a song. "It just kept coming into my head as I went to bed last night."... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 15 July 2004
CAPPS-II is dead. Long live CAPPS-II!
Hours after announcing that the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring system would be renamed and/or merged into other programs rather than implemented by its original name, the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began floating trial balloons -- here and here and here and... (...Read Entire Entry)CAPPS-II to be renamed and/or merged into traveller registration program
USA Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has confirmed in an interview with USA Today that the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring system will be renamed and/or merged into a system of (pseudo-voluntary) registration of travellers. USA Today headlined the story, "Plan to collect flier data canceled", which would... (...Read Entire Entry)"Throw Momma from the train"?
Press release: TSA Begins Third Phase of Rail Security Experiment Beginning Monday, passengers may be screened for explosives while traveling on Connecticut's Shoreline East commuter rail as part of the third stage of a pilot program exploring new measures for rail security. Passengers boarding from one of the eight Shoreline... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 14 July 2004
TSA admits CAPPS-II "back to the drawing board"
Responding to questions at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing yesterday on his nomination as administrator of the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Navy Admiral David M. Stone reportedly said the TSA is considering changing or eliminating major components of the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring proposal.... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 11 July 2004
"Agreement" and "Undertakings" on PNR transfers published by USA and EU
Statewatch notes the publication of the Undertakings on PNR transfers, including as an attechment the list of PNR and API elements to be transferred in the Federal Register (69 FR 41543-41547, 9 July 2004), and the publication of the PNR transfer Agreement (OJ L 235/12, 6 July 2004) in the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 9 July 2004
MBTA board ignores continued protests of passenger stops and searches
Directors of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ignored protesters at their meeting last night in Boston, refusing to debate their new policy of "random" stops and searches of transit passengers. Meanwhile, with growing national interest and media coverage of the preparations for the Democratic Party National Convention later this month... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 8 July 2004
My mother the terrorist
The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly confirmed issuing orders last month to immigration inspectors at six USA airports (LAX, JFK, EWR, IAD, ORD, and DTW) to give special scrutiny to "all travelers of Pakistani descent, including U.S. citizens," according to several independent reports. The nature of the... (...Read Entire Entry)Today, police dogs on buses. Tomorrow, bagels and coffee, too.
Yesterday would-be travellers on interstate commuter buses from New Hampshire to Boston were required to submit to searches and dog-sniffing of themselves and their baggage by police before being allowed to board. The Boston Globe reports that more searches are planned, while the Associated Press (via the Portsmouth [NH] Herald),... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 July 2004
Don't register to fly.
Today the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and several major airlines (starting with Northwest, to be followed by United and American) started providing separate security lines at certain hub airports for those of their elite frequent flyers who have volunteered to be photographed, fingerprinted, iris scanned (recording the patterns of... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 6 July 2004
Security expert criticizes US-VISIT
US-VISIT Is No Bargain (Bruce Schneier, eWeek, 5 July 2004) The contract for the next phase of the US-VISIT program costs $15 billion . It also has other costs: convenience, privacy, civil liberties and distraction from the greater danger of other terrorist threats. Despite its costs, US-VISIT doesn't offer us... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 3 July 2004
Weather Forecast for Thursday: Tea in Boston Harbor
The Boston Globe reported yesterday on growing protests and threatened lawsuits against the MBTA's plans (already at least partially in effect, according to some reports) for "random" stops, searches, and demands for identification credentials on transit vehicles and in stations. The Globe also had a wishy-washy editorial, Searching Questions ,... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 2 July 2004
Privacy and Human Rights
I've posted a draft of a new section on Travel Privacy that I've been asked to contribute for the Privacy and Human Rights 2004 annual international survey of privacy law and developments. (Here's the 2003 edition .) Comments are welcome, as always. [Addendum, 13 December 2004: Here's the final version... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 1 July 2004
"Flight Risk" Friday on KPFA Morning Show
I'll be making a brief appearance tomorrow morning (Friday, 2 July 2004) sometime between 7:30 and 7:50 a.m. PDT (15:30-15:50 UTC/GMT) on The Morning Show on KPFA , 94.1 FM in Berkeley, CA. For those outside the broadcast area, there's real-time streaming audio and archived audio files . I'll be... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 29 June 2004
TSA lawyers reportedly willing to negotiate on CAPPS-II
Privacy advocates delays seeking injunction in TSA passenger screening (Dan Joling, Associated Press, via Anchorage Daily News ) More information on the case Court documents Previous report on the case... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 28 June 2004
T Riders Union, Rider Oversight Committee join opposition to MBTA searches
The following message was sent to several public mailing lists. Since I haven't been able to find in anywhere on the Web, I'm reposting it in full (with the author's permission): From: "Khalida Smalls" [Executive Director of the T Riders Union , a project of the Alliance for Community and... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 27 June 2004
Rally against MBTA bag searches
Adam Gaffin's Boston Common blog picks up on the following posting today by Ron Newman in the MBTA Police = Stasi? thread of the Wicked Good Conference . It was also posted to the "ne.transportation" Usenet newsgroup, which has had perhaps the most extensive discussion of this issue: A leaflet... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 25 June 2004
European Parliament president brings suit against PNR transfers to the USA
G.W. Bush arrived in Ireland tonight for the USA-European Union summit to a rude surprise: while Air Force One was in the air en route to Shannon, Irish MEP and outgoing European Parliament President Pat Cox announced as his final act in office his decision in Dublin to ask the... (...Read Entire Entry)National Lawyers Guild advises MBTA passengers on right not to consent to search
As a member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a Masschusetts native, a regular rider of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on my visits back East, and an advocate for travellers, I was greatly pleased by today's announcement by the Massachusetts Chapter of the NLG of a public awareness campaign... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 24 June 2004
Consumer groups call on USA-EU summit to protect air travel data privacy
A coalition of USA and European Union consumer organizations has included a call for greater privacy protection for passenger name record (PNR) data as one of its three key requests to USA and EU leaders at their summit meeting tomorrow, 25 June 2004, at Dromoland Castle in County Clare, Ireland.... (...Read Entire Entry)More from the TSA on its CAPPS-II plans
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has posted the full 100 pages of Admiral David M. Stone's written responses to questions from the USA Senate Government Affairs Committee in conection with today's hearing on Stone's confirmation as head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 22 June 2004
TSA names more airlines, CRS's that turned over reservations for CAPPS-II tests
In preparation for today's USA Senate Government Affairs Committee hearing on the nomination of (former?) Admiral David M. Stone as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration (i.e. the head of the TSA -- yet another military officer in charge of the nominally-civilian agency), Stone submitted written answers to... (...Read Entire Entry)Meanwhile, back in Boston...
As first noted in a comment last week in this blog, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has already begun stopping "T" rail passengers and demanding identification, under threat that travellers will be detained, not merely expelled from T property, if they are unable or unwilling to provide satisfactory identification.... (...Read Entire Entry)More mandatory surprise warrantless searches of Amtrak passengers
The USA Transportation Security Administration is conducting a second round of tests this month of mandatory surprise warrantless searches of passengers and baggage on Amtrak trains, this time at Washington (DC) Union Station -- located, ironically, just 3 blocks from the Supreme Court of the USA. As in the first... (...Read Entire Entry)Marshmallow mis-arrest showcases risk of reliance on DHS watch lists
A pre-school teacher's aide from Wyoming erroneously included on a USA Department of Homeland Security watch list of people wanted on outstanding warrants for Federal crimes was arrested on arrival at the Port of Miami last week, on the basis of a year-old citation, which she had paid , issued... (...Read Entire Entry)Backlash against Supreme Court's Hiibel decision
In response to yesterday's decision by the Supreme Court of the USA in Hiibel v. Nevada , the Washington Post editorializes today that, "Targets of law enforcement have a right not to [cooperate]. Carving out exceptions, even seemingly innocent ones, is a bad idea." Closer to Hiibel's home, Nevada's largest... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 21 June 2004
USA Supreme Court upholds demand for traveller's name
The Supreme Court of the USA today announced its 5 to 4 decision in the case of Hiibel v. Nevada , upholding the criminal conviction of a person whose only offense was that, when stopped by a county sheriff while standing along a public right-of-way, he refused to "identify himself"... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 18 June 2004
USA Senate schedules hearings on aviation security
The USA Senate Commitee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has scheduled two hearings next week on aviation security and "screening". On Tuesday, 22 June 2004, the full Commitee will hold a hearing on Aviation Security including "testimony on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) 2005 budget request [and] the progress... (...Read Entire Entry)Updated FAQ on dealing with bankrupt airlines
With United Airlines' application for loans from the USA government to bail it out of its ongoing bankruptcy having been denied again Wednesday by the USA Air Transportation Stabilization Board , and with US Airways (struggling to pay back the government loans that got it out of bankruptcy last year),... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 17 June 2004
Europarl party leaders endorse challenge to PNR agreement and adequacy finding
Later in the day yesterday, 16 June 2004, a majority of the presidents of parties in the European Parliament reportedly voted to endorse the JURI Committee's request to the Europarl President to seek the annulment by the European Court of Justice of the European Commission (EC) agreement for the the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 16 June 2004
Europarl committee votes to bring new challenge to USA access to airline reservation data
The President of the European Parliament was requested today to bring new legal actions before the European Court of Justice, to ask the Court to annul both the European Commission's finding that airline passenger data is "adequately" protected by the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the "Agreement" signed... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 15 June 2004
Federal judge orders review of TSA secrecy about "No-Fly List"
After reviewing blanket claims by the USA Transportation Security Administration, Department of Justice, and FBI that information concerning the so-called "'no-fly'and other transportation watch lists" is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal judge in San Francsico ruled today that "The Court's preliminary review of... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 14 June 2004
USA starts negotiations with Switzerland on access to airline passenger data
The USA is beginning discussions with Switzerland with the goal of obtaining Swiss permisison for USA access to airline reservation data collected in Switzerland, according to a report form Agence France-Press quoting a Swiss government aviation official. Because it is impossible to detemine from airline reservations (PNR's) where the data... (...Read Entire Entry)Same old lies from the DHS about CAPPS-II
A human-interest feature in USA Today on Nuala O'Connor Kelley, Chief Privacy Officer for the USA Department of Homeland Security, is accompanied by a sidebar described in the main story as "O'Connor Kelly Q&A" that repeats statements about the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and surveillance system that Ms. O'Connor Kelley... (...Read Entire Entry)G-8 plans air travel data sharing
At the the G-8 summit last week in Sea Island, Georgia, USA, heads of government of the USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia announced a Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI) which includes an agreement for "real-time data exchange with respect to ... advanced passenger information,... (...Read Entire Entry)Europarl special meeting on legality of PNR transfers to USA
The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) has been recalled to Brussels for a special meeting this Wednesday, 16 June 2004, to consider whether to initiate a new challenge with the European Court of Justice to the legality of the European Commission's purported agreement with... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 7 June 2004
"Welcome to America"
The ever-vigilant Michael Froomkin spotted a reprint of the latest outrage in USA government treatment of foreign visitors, from the Guardian (UK) newspaper: When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 4 June 2004
US-VISIT prime contract for up to US$10 billion goes to Accenture
A consortium led by Accenture LLP has been awarded the prime contract for up to US$10 billion (suject to for the "US-VISIT" visitor surveillance system, according to an announcement by the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Accenture was originally Andersen Consulting, the consulting division of the Arthur Andersen accounting... (...Read Entire Entry)CAPPS-II may be "phased in gradually", says DHS
In the first public admission that the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may have to scale back or postpone its plans for the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring system, DHS Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson told a Reuters "Air and Defense Summit" yesterday: The United... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 28 May 2004
DHS, European Commission sign "deal" on airline reservations
On Friday, 28 June 2004, the USA Secretary of Homeland Security and representatives of the European Union signed an agreement negotiated between the DHS and the European Commssion that -- if and when it is ratified and comes into force, if and when the DHS publishes specified Undertakings in the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 26 May 2004
DHS doesn't require transit passenger ID checks -- BART police chief
The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not require -- even under its latest, still secret, rail security directive which was issued last Thursday and took effect Sunday -- the sort of transit and commuter rail passenger stops and ID checks that are being made by MBTA transit police... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 24 May 2004
Another data aggregator got airline reservations
In the course of an article on the efforts of high-technology companies on Masachusetts Route 128 to profit from the homeland security gravy train, the Boston Globe reports today that data aggregator LocatePLUS Holdings "has worked with the FBI to analyze the manifests of the four planes involved in the... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 23 May 2004
"U.S. Nearing Deal on Way to Track Foreign Visitors"
A front-page story in the New York Times tomorrow, 24 May 2004, U.S. Nearing Deal on Way to Track Foreign Visitors, highlights the potential cost of the USA Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT program for fingerprinting, photgraphing, and compiling lifetime dossiers on visitors to the USA. The Times says the... (...Read Entire Entry)Alaskans to Sue over CAPPS-II
Four Alaskans today announced plans for a Federal lawsuit that will "ask... the court to order the TSA [USA Transportation Security Administration] to tell us when a Security Directive is issued by the TSA so we can learn when they order the airlines to start sending passenger information to the... (...Read Entire Entry)Mixed reaction to police stops and ID checks on Mass. transit
Headlines today in Boston's two main newspapers exemplify the mixed reaction to yesterday's announcement that MBTA transit police, following training by Massachusetts state troopers (not a good sign, for those familiar with the reputation of the Mass. "staties"), plan to begin warrantless stops and "identification checks" of subway, streetcar, and... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 22 May 2004
Police to begin warrantless ID stops of Boston-area subway and streetcar passengers
The Boston Globe reports today that, "MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority] transit police confirmed yesterday they will begin stopping passengers for identification checks at various T locations, apparently as part of new national rail security measures. Although officials would release few details about the initiative, the identity checks will mark... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 21 May 2004
USA Congressional hearing on biometric identification of travellers
The Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the USA House of Representatives (a mouthful, yes?) held a hearing this Wednesday, 19 May 2004, on "The Use Of Biometrics To Improve Aviation Security" and for other travel-related purposes. The witnesses included government representatives of the Border... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 20 May 2004
Europarl leaders rip European Commission "deal" with the USA on airline reservations
The European Commission decisions in the past week approving access by the USA Department of Homeland Security to European Union airline reservations, for purposes including testing of the CAPPS-II pasenger profiling and surveillance system, have prompted immediate angry responses from leaders of the European Parliament. Statewatch reports that the heads... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 19 May 2004
European Commission declares USA travel privacy non-protection "adequate"
Last Thursday, 14 May 2004, the European Commission (EC) approved a decision finding that "the United States' Bureau of Customs and Border Protection [CBP] is considered to ensure an adequate level of protection for PNR data transferred from the [European] Community concerning flights to or from the United States, in... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Biometric ID cards
I'm leaving tonight for Boston (on jetBlue Airways, ironically, but I've said all along that, despite my discovery that they turned over their entire reservation archives to a military contractor, they aren't any worse than other airlines -- that sort of thing is, unfortunately, common) for tomorrow's seminar at Harvard... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 11 May 2004
ICAO ignores critics, keeps moving toward biometric/RFID passport standard
The Technical Advisory Group on Machine-Readable Travel Documents (TAG-MRTD) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will meet again next week at ICAO headquarters in Montréal, P.Q., Canada. "Further work on specifications for biometric-enabled passports and other travel documents will be the focus of the meeting," according to the ICAO... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 10 May 2004
USA backs away from promise to respect European Parliament vote on airline data transfers
On 13 February 2004, USA Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Border and Transportation Security told a CAPPS-II Media Roundtable staged, transcribed, and released by the Department of Homeland Security itself on its Web site: Question: Mr. under Secretary, Robert Block from the Wall Street Journal, I have a letter... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 7 May 2004
TSA announces more airport surveillance, biometric/RFID tests
The USA Transportation Security Administration has announced plans to test a variety of new surveillance systems and devices -- including automated video face recognition, digital fingerprint scanning, and remotely-readable RFID chips -- to monitor and control movements of workers at eight airports: Newark Liberty International Airport, NJ (EWR) Miami International... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 4 May 2004
More details on airline, CRS, and USA government data "sharing"
Documents newly obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information center (EPIC) under the Freedom of Information Act, and reporting by the New York Times following the documents' release, have revealed new details about both the use of airline reservations both by the FBI in its investigation of the 11 September 2001... (...Read Entire Entry)"No means no": Europarl again refuses to approve airline data transfers to the USA
The European Parliament, at its final meeting of the legislative session, voted today by 343 to 301, with 18 abstentions, not to take up an "urgency request" from the European Commission that the EP decide immediately whether to approve the "deal" proposed by the Commission for wholesale access and transfers... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 2 May 2004
Choicepoint CEO opposes CAPPS-II
The Associated Press reports today that Derek V. Smith, CEO of one of the world's largest data aggregators, Choicepoint, Inc. (formerly a division of the Equifax credit bureau), opposes "the Pentagon's now-quashed Total Information Awareness system, the CAPPS II airline passenger screening system and the Matrix multistate crime and terrorism... (...Read Entire Entry)Europarl want legal opinion on airline data transfers. USA wants another vote.
At its plenary session on Wednesday, 21 April 2004, the European Parliament voted 276 to 260, with 13 abstentions to request an opinion from the European Court of Justice on the leglaity of the proposed agreement to allow airline reservation data collected in the EU to be transferred to the... (...Read Entire Entry)More fallout from American Airlines' CAPPS-II testing scandal
Since American Airlines' late-afternoon, Good Friday confirmation of my reports that they had given millions of passenger reservation records to 4 teams of CAPPS-II contractors in 2002, I've had no response to my requests for comment from Amadeus, the EU-based CRS and parent company of Airline Automation, which I'd previously... (...Read Entire Entry)Congress has questions about rail passenger searches
Reacting even before this coming Tuesday's planned start of the USA Transportation Security Administration's Transit and Rail Inspection Pilot program, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), has sent a list of questions about the rail passenger searches: "[I]n accordance with the Committee's oversight obligations, I request that... (...Read Entire Entry)Travel agents join opposition to CAPPS-II
The printed record of the USA House Aviation Subcommitee's 17 March 2004 hearing on the status of the CAPPS-II airline oassenger profiling and surveillance system won't be published for months, and only the testimony presented in person has been posted on the Subcommittee Web site. But, as is usually the... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 April 2004
USA to start searching rail passengers
TSA to Screen AMTRAK, MARC Passengers at New Carrollton, Md., in Pilot Program with National Potential WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Rear Adm. David M. Stone, Acting Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration; and officials... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 26 April 2004
Registered Traveler / Trusted Traveler juggernaut
Business Travel News reports today that the USA Transportation Security Administration is evaluating responses to its request for proposals from private companies to operate a trial version of a Registered Traveller (formerly known as "Trusted Traveller") system at selected USA airports. BTN also reports on several trials of similar systems... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 22 April 2004
"Travel Data and Privacy" forum tonight at CFP
I'll be leading a background and status briefing and strategy session on Travel Data and Privacy tonight, Thursday, 22 April 2004, at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. My notes indicate some of what I'll be trying to cover in the briefing, which will be followed by a strategy discussion... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 10 April 2004
American Airlines confirms reservations used in CAPPS-II tests
American Airlines has finally confirmed that, as I reported last year on my Web site, more than a million archived American Airlines reservation records were turned over to each of four competing teams of contractors working on the CAPPS-II passenger profiling and monitoring system in the summer of 2002. According... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 7 April 2004
More Europarl opposition to giving airline data to the USA
Further communications I've received from European Parliament sources in Brussels confirm that, in addition to the vote of the LIBE committee reported here yesterday, two other Europarl committeees also voted this week to oppose the draft agreement to allow PNR data from the EU to be transferred to the USA... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 6 April 2004
TSA requests proposals for "Registered Traveller" program
The USA Transportation Security Administration has published a Request For Proposals (MS-Word format) for a "Registered Traveller" pilot program to be conducted for 90 days beginning in June 2004, involving 5,000-10,0000 "voluntarily" registered travellers and domestic USA flights from 3-5 airports. Participants would have their biometric information (fingerprints and/or iris... (...Read Entire Entry)Europarl committee recommends against PNR data sharing with USA, biometric passports
The European Parliament's Committe on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs ("LIBE Committee") today voted to recommend that the Europarl not approve a draft agreement between the European Community and the USA on the processing and transfer of PNR data by airlines to the USA Department of Homeland... (...Read Entire Entry)Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)
This month the USA starts its next round of prototype testing of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC), a secretly and remotely readable RFID/biometric ID card which 12 million or more workers in the passenger and freight transportation industry and in the vicinity of transsportation facilities will eventually be required... (...Read Entire Entry)Class-action lawsuit challenges USA "No-Fly" list
The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a Federal class action lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgement against the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that their "maintenance, management, and dissemination of the No-Fly List are unconstitutional under the Fifth and Fourth Amendments" to... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 5 April 2004
Labor Tech 2004 denounces surveillance of travellers and transportation workers
I spent the weekend at the Labor Tech 2004 conference on labor and technology at Stanford University, where I spoke about the surveillance of travel and transportation workers (more on those issues in a separate article) as part of a panel on the surveillance of workers. International labor and technology... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 2 April 2004
USA wants to extend fingerprinting and photographing to all visitors except Canadians
The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of State today joined in asking Congress to expand the requirement for fingerprinting and digital mug shots of foreigners entering or transitting the USA to include even those travellers who aren't required to have visas under the "Visa Waiver Program" (VWP)... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 1 April 2004
Parliament rejects mandate for airlines to give European governments access to reservations
Applying the same standard to mandatory handovers of airline passenger data to European Union governments that it had applied a day earlier in its vote rejecting mandatory access to PNR data by the USA government, the European Parliament today voted to reject a Spanish proposal that would require airlines operaitng... (...Read Entire Entry)ICAO session concludes early after finalizing passport and reservation standards
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Facilitation Section meeting in Cairo adjourned today, a day earlier than scheduled, after a session with little controversy between the delegates and, it would appear from the early adjournment, little serious debate or discussion on the issues raised by the privacy, civil liberties, and... (...Read Entire Entry)RFID chips to be used to track airline passengers and baggage
At a panel on "RFID In the Airline Industry" at the RFID Journal Live! Executive Conference which concluded yesterday in Chicago, USA government and airline speakers announced major steps toward the widespread deployment of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips for tracking of both passengers and baggage within the USA, according to... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 31 March 2004
European Parliament rejects travel data "deal" with the USA
At today's plenary session today, the European Parliemant voted 229 to 202, with 19 abstentions, in favor of a report and motion for a resolution with additional strengthening amendments that rejects, on multiple grounds, the "agreement" proposed by the European Commission to permit transfers of airline PNR's ("passenger name records")... (...Read Entire Entry)Record on CAPPS-II hearing closes today
The written record of the 17 March 2004 hearing on CAPPS-II before the USA House Aviation Subcommittee closes at the close of business today in Washington, DC (14 days after the hearing date). My own written testimony included my comments on the CAPPS-II Privacy Act notices and focused on the... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 29 March 2004
International privacy coalition calls for halt to ICAO biometric/RFID passport plans
In An Open Letter to the ICAO released today by Privacy International, 34 privacy and civil liberties organizations from around the world (with more still joining as endorsers) are calling on the International Civil Aviation Organization not to adopt the proposals currently before ICAO for passport and travel document standards... (...Read Entire Entry)Public radio report on CAPPS-II features tired TSA lies
I was interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio's Jeff Horwich for a two-part, 15-minute feature on CAPPS-II that's being broadcast today and tomorrow: Part One: Years after 9/11, passenger screening system still grounded Part Two: Civil liberties groups fear travel "surveillance" Transcripts: Part One Part Two Real Audio streams: Part One... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 24 March 2004
European Parliament to vote on transfer of PNR data to the USA
Consideration and a vote on the draft European Parliament resolution against PNR data transfers to the USA, as recommended for approval by the LIBE Committee, has been placed on the draft agenda for the Europarl plenary session on Wednesday, 31 March 2004, in Strasbourg. Statewatch, citing EUpolitix.com and internal Europarl... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 23 March 2004
TSA appoints its first privacy officer
Ryan Singel of Wired News reports this morning that Lisa Dean, since mid-2003 the Washington, DC representative of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been appointed as the first Chief Privacy Officer of the USA Transportation Security Administration. In her previous job as director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 22 March 2004
"Travel Data and Privacy" session on CFP 2004 agenda
Despite having been omitted in error from the printed schedule you may be receiving in the mail, and the PDF file on the CFP2004.org Web site, I'm assured that the "birds-of-a-feather" session I'm facilitating on "Travel Data and Privacy" is still on the agenda for this year's "Computers, Freedom, and... (...Read Entire Entry)USA Supreme Court hears argument on ID case
In a case with profound implications on the freedom to travel (in the USA, that's part of the First Amendment to the Constitution: "the right of the people ... peacably to assemble") the USA Supreme Court hears arguments today in Hiibel v. Nevada, in which a Nevada cowboy was arrested,... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 21 March 2004
House hearing on CAPPS-II shows continued TSA distortions, growing airline concerns
Testimony at last Wednesday's hearing on CAPPS-II before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the USA House of Representatives Commiteee on Transportation and Infrastructure continued the Transportation Security Administration's campaign of lies about CAPPS-II, while revealing increasing concern by airlines -- even those in the USA -- about the cost and... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 19 March 2004
Europarl committee recommends rejection of travel data "deal" with the USA
At its meeting Thursday, 18 March 2004, the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee) voted 25 to 9, with 3 abstentions, to recommend adoption of a resolution to "Call... upon the [European] Commission to withdraw the draft decision" on the adequacy of... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 17 March 2004
Congress to hear today from opponents of CAPPS-II
Testimony prepared for today's Congressional hearing on the status of the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and monitoring system reveals increasing unity of opposition from business travellers and organizations, and continued hypocrisy by the airlines with respect to prtecting travellers' privacy. In a series of articles this week here and here... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 15 March 2004
Want privacy? Don't fly Northwest Airlines.
In a memorandum of law at once extraordinary and typical in its dismissal of travellers' concerns for the privacy of their reservation records, Northwest Airlines (IATA airline code "NW") has declared that: [T]here is no general "public policy" in favor of such [privacy] rights. Passengers have no inherent right or... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 11 March 2004
CAPPS-II hearing rescheduled
The USA House Aviation Subcommittee hearing on the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and surveillance system, originally scheduled for today, has been rescheduled to next Wednesday, 17 March 2004, starting at 10 a.m. Washington time (GMT-5), in room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building. So far as I know, the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 10 March 2004
European Parliament reaffirms rejection of USA demands for airline reservations
In response to a report and recommendations on the implementation of the 1995 European Union Data Protection Directive, the European Parliament has overwhelmingly reiterated its finding on airline reservation data that: National and European laws on the transfer of personal data to third countries have been flagrantly breached by the... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 7 March 2004
Witnesses selected for House hearing on CAPPS-II
The USA House Aviation Subcommittee has chosen the following witnesses to testify at this Thursday's first Congressional hearing on the CAPPS-II airline passengers profiling and monitoring system: Tom Blank, Transportation Security Administration Norm Rabkin, General Accounting Office Jim May, Air Transport Association Kevin Mitchell, Business Travel Coalition Paul Rosenzweig, Heritage... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 March 2004
Proposal in the European parliament to reject transfer of PNR's to the USA
The European Parliament would "Call... upon the [European] Commission to withdraw the draft decision" on the adequacy of protection provided for personal data contained in airline reservations Passenger Name Records (PNR's) transferred to the USA from the European Union, according to a resolution to be taken up by a European... (...Read Entire Entry)"Nightmare of CAPPS II far from becoming reality"
Travel Weekly has the worst-designed Web site of those that I read regularly, rife with buggy browser-specific code requiring an unusually complex registration process as well as acceptance of both cookies and pop-ups. But it's one of the leading journals for travel agencies throughout the USA, and occasionally it's worth... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 25 February 2004
TSA finally starts talking to travel execs about CAPPS-II
The USA Transportation Security Administration held its first meeting with corporate travel managers and privacy officers last Friday, according to an announcement from the Association of Corporate Travel Executives: "It's time for the Transportation Safety Administration to consult with corporate travel managers and privacy officers..." This is the conclusion of... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 20 February 2004
DHS Privacy Officer releases report on jetBlue Airways scandal
The Chief Privacy Officer of the USA Department of Homeland Security today released her Report to the Public on Events Surrounding jetBlue Data Transfer of the entire jetBlue Airways reservation archives to a military contractor. The DHS also released a Transcript of Media Roundtable with Nuala O'Connor Kelly, Chief Privacy... (...Read Entire Entry)Congressional hearing on CAPPS-II set for 11 March 2004
The Subcommittee on Aviation of the USA House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has scheduled a public subcommittee hearing on Thursday, 11 March 2003, on the proposed Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, version 2 (CAPPS-II). The Aviation Subcommittee Charperson, Rep. John Mica (republican of Florida) has been strongly critical of... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 17 February 2004
Call for Congressional hearings on CAPPS-II and travel privacy
A coalition of privacy groups from across the political spectrum today jointly called on Congress to hold hearings on "on the threat to privacy and civil liberties posed by government collection and use of airline passenger name records (PNRs)." In a letter sent to the Chairperson and Ranking Minority Member... (...Read Entire Entry)DHS spin doctors respond to GAO critique of CAPPS-II
Transcript of Media Roundtable with Nuala O'Connor Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, DHS (17 February 2004) Transcript of DHS Undersecretary Hutchinson's Remarks at a CAPPS II Media Roundtable (13 February 2004) DHS 'Fact' Sheet: CAPPS II at a Glance (13 February 2004) CAPPS II: 'Myths' and 'Facts' from the DHS (13... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 13 February 2004
"Government Data Rules Eliminate Hope of Privacy for US Air Travelers"
Government Data Rules Eliminate Hope of Privacy for US Air Travelers (Gene J. Koprowski, TechNewsWorld, 13 February 2004) Most airlines outsource their domestic reservation databases, known as Passenger Name Records (PNRs) to organizations with clever names like Sabre, Amadeus and Worldspan. "With the cost of storage dropping, retention times have... (...Read Entire Entry)Why CAPPS-II would cost a billion dollars
Several people have asked for the basis of my cost estimate for CAPPS-II, quoted today in Business Travel News online and elsewhere. My estimate of US$1 billion or more in in infrastructure and implementation costs to airlines, computerized reservations systems (CRS's), travel agencies and agents, other intermediaries, and software and... (...Read Entire Entry)"CAPPS II Faces Massive Technical Challenges"
Industry: CAPPS II Faces Massive Technical Challenges (Business Travel News online, 13 February 2004) On top of myriad concerns already being debated (BTNonline, Feb. 12), sources said technical challenges to garnering additional passenger data for the planned computer assisted passenger prescreening system not only have gone unstudied, but may be... (...Read Entire Entry)40 members of Congress call for CAPPS-II delay or suspension
In two different letters sent this week, a total of 40 members of the USA House of Representatives have asked that the CAPPS-II airline passenger surveillance and profiling system not be implemented unless and until their, and their constituents', privacy and civil liberties concerns are addressed. The first letter was... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 12 February 2004
GAO report on CAPPS-II released
Aviation Security: Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System Faces Significant Implementation Challenges. (GAO-04-385, 12 February 2004)... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 11 February 2004
"Big business joins fight against new airport screening"
Big business joins fight against new airport screening (Christian Science Monitor, 12 February 2004) Corporate America has joined privacy advocates in raising alarm over the Transportation Security Agency's (TSA) plans to put a massive airline-passenger screening system in place by this summer.... More than 100 members of the Business Travel... (...Read Entire Entry)AP, UPI say the GAO will give "thumbs down" on CAPPS-II
A draft of the forthcoming General Accounting Office (GAO) report on CAPPS-II obtained by the Associated Press and UPI reportedly says that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has failed to meet seven of the eight tests (see section 519) specified by Congress last fall as the prerequisites for any further... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 10 February 2004
CAPPS-II director "retires" on eve of GAO audit report
Not waiting to face the music when the General Accounting Office reports on its audit of his CAPPS-II airline passenger surveillance and profiling program later this week, the director of the Transportation Security Adnministration's "Office of National Risk Assessment" (ONRA), whose principal task was to develop CAPPS-II, has submitted his... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 9 February 2004
House, Senate members call for action on travel privacy
Prompted by grassroots outrage at CAPPS-II and the jetBlue Airways and Northwest Airlines privacy scandals, especially from business travellers, members of both the House and Senate have begun calling for Congressional action. The Oakland Tribune reports that 16 members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter to TSA... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 6 February 2004
E-mail hints at use of jetBlue Airways reservations for Total Information Awareness
A newly-released e-mail message to John Poindexter, director of the USA military's "Total Information Awareness" (TIA) program, heightens my suspicion that the use of jetBlue Airways passenger reservation archives by a military contractor in 2002 was related to -- perhaps even central to -- the TIA program. The 26 May... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 5 February 2004
"EU Commission plots global travel surveillance system"
EU Commission plots global travel surveillance system (John Lettice, The Register , 4 February 2004) So actually, we're not talking about a battle between US Big Brother on the one hand and freedom and privacy loving Europe on the other; we are talking about a general, and effectively global, effort... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 4 February 2004
Many questions, few answers on jetBlue scandal
What's come out of the inquiries into the jetBlue Airways privacy scandal four months ago? Nothing , Ryan Singel concludes today after investigating the investigations for Wired News . After my report in September 2003 that jetBlue had given their entire archive of reservation data to a subcontractor to the... (...Read Entire Entry)Whatever you do, don't call 911
Moroccan lawmakers detained at Portland airport The Oregonian , 1 February 2004 Seven members of the Moroccan parliament, visiting Portland as part of a goodwill tour of the United States, were removed from a Delta Air Lines flight Saturday morning and detained at the Portland International Airport... Speaking through an... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 3 February 2004
Bush boosts CAPPS-II budget in face of growing opposition
The Bush Administration has reportedly proposed to increase funding for the CAPPS-II airline passenger profiling and and surveillance system from US$45 million (previously reported as US$35 million, so this may be in error) in fiscal year 2004 to US$60 million in 2005. The proposed budget is still only a tiny... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 2 February 2004
"Undertakings" by the USA on use of reservation data
As mentioned in an earlier article, Statewatch has posted the complete text of the 12 January 2004 draft "Undertakings of the [USA] Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP)" on transfers of airline reservations data (passenger name records, or PNR's ) from the European Union to... (...Read Entire Entry)Complaint filed against KLM in the Netherlands
A complaint (in Dutch) against KLM Royal Dutch Airlines for the transfer of KLM reservation data to the USA space agency NASA (for use in passenger profiling experiments) by KLM's code-share partner Northwest Airlines was filed with the Dutch College Bescherming Persoonsgegevens (CBP), or Data Protection Authority last Friday by... (...Read Entire Entry)Privacy watchdogs unite against travel surveillance. Tom Ridge replies with lies.
Both a coalition of leading European privacy advocates and NGO's, and the Article 29 Working Party of national data privacy protection authorities of European Union members, today released new joint critiques of current USA-led global schemes for international surveillance and monitoring of the movements of travellers. Their statements drew strong... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 1 February 2004
More illegal USA advance snooping in EU PNR data leads to more flight cancellations
Yet again yesterday flights from the European Union to the USA have been cancelled at the orders of the USA Department of Homeland Security on the basis of information illegally obtained by the DHS from European airline reservations. A month ago, when last this happened, it was later widely reported... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 31 January 2004
Canada proposes to follow USA lead on surveillance of travellers
The re-opening of talks between the USA and Canada on transfers of airline reservations (PNR's), and their use by government, also re-opens a long-running debate on this question within Canada. I'm neither a lawyer nor an expert on Canadian Parliamentary procedure , but for those who are just now beginnning... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 30 January 2004
USA and Canada open talks on airline data
Just over three full years after the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act took effect for airlines that do business in Canada on 1 January 2001 , the Canadian government has finally begun negotiations with the USA regarding the conflict between the Canadian law and USA government demands... (...Read Entire Entry)Business Travel Coalition joins call for hearings on CAPPS-II and travel data privacy
Prompted by Jane Black's column this week in Business Week (which in turn drew its recommendations from her interview with me last July and the agenda I've outlined here , here , here , here , and in my books , among other places), the Business Travel Coalition has launched... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 29 January 2004
More questions on reservation data shared by NASA, Northwest, & KLM
The official agenda said yesterday's hearing by the USA Senate Committee on Science and Transportation on "NASA Future Space Mission" was supposed to "focus on President Bush's recent proposal to return astronauts to the Moon and expand human space exploration to Mars." But Senators had more down-to-Earth concerns. In the... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 28 January 2004
USA airlines ask Congress to merge US-VISIT and CAPPS-II
James May, President and CEO of the Air Transport Association, the trade association of USA-based airlines, told a very different story to Congress today than had been suggested by ATA press statements following last week's ATA meeting with the USA Department of Homeland Security on the privacy of travel records.... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 27 January 2004
European Commissioner ackowledges need of USA airlines to respect EU privacy laws
In a letter dated 18 December 2004 to USA Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein has clearly ackowledged the practical impossibility (as I've been discussing for months) of segregating personal data in airline reservations collected in the European Union from data collected in the USA or... (...Read Entire Entry)Hearings on US-VISIT, but ...
The Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security of the USA House Select Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing on the US-VISIT program tomorrow, 28 January 2004. As I've discussed in previous articles , the US-VISIT prgram has come under intense worldwide criticism for subjecting foreign visitors, including tourists... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 26 January 2004
"Our privacy laws are rather primitive" - ACLU
USA Undersecratary of Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson reportedly told an AP interviewer today that the DHS has decided to order airlines to turn over passenger reservation records to the DHS for tests of the CAPPS-II passenger profiling and surveillance system. The DHS claimed to have been considering a public rule-making... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 22 January 2004
"Homeland Security" meeting today with USA airlines on data privacy
Northwest Airlines, the Air Transport Association (ATA), and the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are putting very different spins on their meeting today on CAPPS-II and the privacy of airline passengers, held while angry travellers jammed the phones at the ATA headqurters to complain about past and possible future... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 21 January 2004
Passengers sue. Airlines circle the wagons.
The first consumer class action lawsuit against Northwest Airlines by a passenger was filed Tuesday, 20 January 2004, in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Federal judicial district that includes NW's headquarters, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports . The plaintiff's attorney, Shawn Raiter , "said he expects other... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 20 January 2004
EPIC files complaint against Northwest Airlines; EFF calls for Congressional hearings
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint today with the USA Department of Transportation (DOT), asking DOT to take action against Northwest Airlines (IATA code "NW") for turning over 3 months of passenger name records (PNR's) to NASA for use in development and testing of passenger-profiling schemes .... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 19 January 2004
Northwest Airlines admissions on lack of privacy safeguards
Northwest Airlines (NW) released a statement last night attempting to explain why CEO Richard Anderson said in September 2003, "Northwest Airlines will not share customer information, as JetBlue Airways has", when in fact -- as NASA documents released to EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act show -- NW had... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 18 January 2004
Northwest Airlines gave NASA millions of PNR's
In late 2001, as several airlines and private contractors were using archived Passenger Name Records to test new concepts for profiling of airline passengers, Northwest Airlines (NW) gave CD's containing PNR's for perhaps 10 million or more NW passengers to the USA National Aeronautics and Space Administration for testing of... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 16 January 2004
How to encourage visitors to come to the USA
I was (not?) amused to receive a press release today from the "Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce", informing me of the progress of the government's U.S. Promotion Campaign . The USA has been one of the few countries without a government department... (...Read Entire Entry)"Statewatch" on proposed USA-EU agreement on airline passenger data
From the UK, Statewatch ("monitoring the state and civil liberties in the European Union") has a detailed report and analysis of the status and possible next steps in the EU on transfers of airline passenger data to the USA. Statewatch editor Tony Bunyan summarizes the conclusions thusly: It is very... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 15 January 2004
"Brazil vs. US: The Finger Affair"
My favorite source of news and views from Brazil, by Brazilians, in English, Brazzil.com , weighs in with this perspective by José Gurgel on the fingerprinting, photographing, and other entry requirments for Brazilian citizens visiting the USA, and USA citizens visiting Brazil. Here are some excerpts, but it's well worth... (...Read Entire Entry)"Color it gone -- why TSA's new screening plan won't fly"
Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial on CAPPS-II The Transportation Security Administration's latest flailing at airline terror risks has earned immediate and justified outrage. The color-coded CAPPS II proposal, a system of segregating passengers into presumed threat categories, is Big Brother played by Barney Fife.... Possibilities for abuse are legion. Derogatory colors... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 14 January 2004
More criticism of European Commission for "deal" on CAPPS-II testing
European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein is under increasing attack for the "deal" he has tried to make to turn over European Union airline passenger data to the USA, first for selling out EU citizens privacy rights, and now for trying to keep the "side agreement" authorizing use in CAPPS-II tests of... (...Read Entire Entry)22 government agencies want airline passenger lists
Criticism of government demands -- especially from the USA -- for airline passenger data is being heard increasingly even from within the airline industry. Today, Air Transport World reports that British Airways president Rod Eddington complained to an interviewer from the Financial Times that delays to BA flights to Washington... (...Read Entire Entry)"Wanna Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name?"
How about everything else about you? (Reason Online) Brian Doherty, who wrote the cover story in Reason's print magazine last year on John Gilmore's legal challenge to airline demands for identity documents (still awaiting a preliminary ruling, incidentally), steps back from the current CAPPS-II news to put it in a... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 12 January 2004
"US loses its tourism allure"
Fewer and fewer Norwegians are opting to spend their holidays in the United States. A new survey indicates that half of all questioned view the US as an unattractive travel destination. (Aftenposten) Travel bureau Berg-Hansen commissioned the survey and was amazed by its results, reports newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv . "We... (...Read Entire Entry)USA will keep visitor travel histories for 100 years
A Privacy Impact Assessment for the US-VISIT program I've discussed in previous articles appeared last week on the Web site of the Chief Privacy Officer for the USA Department of Homeland Security. The requirement for fingerprinting and photographing of visitors to the USA (except for short-term tourists from a few... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 9 January 2004
"Scenes From A Sad Airport"
Welcome to America. Please give us the finger. Smile for the camera. Now get the hell out (by Mark Morford, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle's Web site, SF Gate ) This is long, but worth reading all the way through -- it gets better as it goes on. It's... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 8 January 2004
USA snooping on airline reservations violates so-called "deal" with EU
One of the major concerns of the European Union (and other countries) about the demands by the USA for access to airline reservations has been how that access could be limited and controlled. In its report last month to the European Parliament, the European Commission noted the urgency of, "Replacing... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 6 January 2004
European civil libertarians denounce USA use of EU data for CAPPS-II and other unauthorized purposes
My report here yesterday that the USA Department of Homeland Security is claiming the authority to use airline passenger data from the European Union to test the CAPPS-II passenger profiling and surveillance system has drawn immediate reaction from a leading European civil liberties coalition, the European Digital Rights initiative (EDRi).... (...Read Entire Entry)Beware of travellers bearing almanacs
FBI Intelligence Bulletin No. 102 (from Cryptome.org) FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT USE ONLY TO: Law Enforcement Agencies FROM: FBI Counterterrorism Division December 24, 2003 Threat Level: Orange (High). THE FBI INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN, DISSEMINATED ON A WEEKLY BASIS, PROVIDES LAW ENFORCEMENT WITH CURRENT, RELEVANT TERRORISM INFORMATION DEVELOPED FROM COUNTERTERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS AND ANALYSIS.... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 5 January 2004
USA starts fingerprinting visitors. Brazil reciprocates.
Effective today, the USA is fingerprinting and photographing all visitors arriving or departing from the USA except short-term tourist visitors from a few mostly Western European countries, and will retain the digital images in a new US-VISIT database . Most countries have waived the usual international reciprocity of entry requirements... (...Read Entire Entry)USA uses airline reservation data as basis for flight cancellations and interrogations
As I was driving to Los Angeles (it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there) on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Air France (AF) flights to LAX were being cancelled on the instigation of the USA Department of Homeland Security. By the time I got... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 19 December 2003
Data mining and the government
Data Debase: The powerful technology known as data mining -- and how, in the government's hands, it could become a civil libertarian's nightmare by Max Blumenthal (The American Prospect Online, December 19, 2003) A nice survey of data mining pojects by Federal and state governments and government contractors, citing my... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 18 December 2003
More voices in European Parliament against transfer of passenger data to the USA
Despite widespread reprinting in the USA of Department of Homeland Security propaganda claiming that an "agreement" has been reached with the European Union that permits USA government access to airline reservation data collected in the EU, reports from the EU, and especially from members of the European Parliament, make clear... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 17 December 2003
European privacy watchdogs denounce airline reservation data transfers to the USA
Leading European privacy watchdog organizations are denouncing the European Commission's acquiscence to ongoing wholesale transfers of airline reservation data to the USA, in violation of European Union laws and in defiance of a directive from the European Parliament to take action to bring airlines and computerized reservation systems operating in... (...Read Entire Entry)European Parliament member says passenger data transfers to the USA still violate EU law
MEP Marco Cappato, one of the members of the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) to which the European Commisison reported yesterday on the status of airline passenger data transfers from the European Union to the USA, today issued a statement making clear:... (...Read Entire Entry)More on EU passenger data transfers to the USA
I've been studying the full Communication from the Commission to the Council and the Parliament (thanks to EDRI for the link; the final document is essentially identical to the draft I received yesterday, and that was actually distributed at the meeting) concerning yesterday's meeting between the European Commission and the... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 16 December 2003
European Commission reports to Parliament on airline passenger data
European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein is reporting back at this hour today in Strasbourg to an extraordinary joint meeting of the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and the Committtee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market concerning the transfer of airline passenger data... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 12 December 2003
Military retains top post at the TSA
"Retired" former U.S. Navy Admiral David M. Stone has been appointed acting Administrator of the USA Transportation Security Administration. Ex-Admiral Stone replaces former Coast Guard Commandant and Admiral James M. Loy, who was promoted to the position of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. Stone joined the TSA last year (with... (...Read Entire Entry)More on Czech airline data dispute with the USA
The Prague Post has more details on the ongoing Czech Republic-USA dispute over USA demands for passenger data from Czech Airlines (IATA code "OK") flights to and from the USA, and the absence of legal protection for that data once in the USA. The Czech objections to the USA demands... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 11 December 2003
DHS calls for proposals for US-VISIT visitor tracking system
As reported here , here , and here , the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published its request for proposals for the US-VISIT system database and tracking system for foreign visitors. The US-VISIT prime contract will cover the database itself, integration with other government and private information technology,... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 10 December 2003
CAPPS-II will require 3 new directives
Over the past month, I've spent a lot of time -- at the PhoCusWright Executive Conference in Orlando, in interviews in Washington, DC, and by phone and e-mail -- talking with people in various government agencies (in Congressional offices, at the European Commission, and in the TSA and DHS) and... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 7 December 2003
Focus on competition at PhoCusWright conference
As in years past, the 10th PhoCusWright Executive Conference in Orlando, Florida, 17-18 November 2003, brought together the CEO's of the most influential companies at the intersection of travel, technology, and the Internet, providing those of us who observe those industries with one of our most important annual opportunities for... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 6 December 2003
USA demands for airline passenger data violate Czech privacy law
Czech airlines must give USA personal data of its passengers-CT (CTK Czech News Agency, 4 December 2003) The USA demands that the Czech air carrier CSA provide it with data on all its passengers citing terrorism, which the Czech Personal Data Protection Office (UOOU) says causes the CSA to breach... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 3 December 2003
UK follows USA into surveillance and control of airline passengers
Mimicking the CAPPS-II scheme in the USA, the UK government has mooted (in the UK sense of "to moot", meaning, "to propose", not the opposite USA sense of "to moot", meaning, "to render no longer relevant"; the difference is similar to the opposite UK and USA meanings of "to table")... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 2 December 2003
USA still won't agree to legal protection for travel data
This week European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein was called before a joint meeting of the European Parliament's Committees on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and Legal Affairs and the Internal Market to give his report on the USA/European Union talks on transfers of airline passengers' personal data from... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 28 November 2003
New public face for CAPPS-II profiling office
Last week's meeting of the Department of Defense Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee (TAPAC) marked the public debut of the new spokesperson and second-in command of the TSA's "Office of National Risk Assessment", the TSA division whose primary responsibility is the development of traveller profiling algorithms for CAPPS-II. Although ONRA... (...Read Entire Entry)Airlines complain about government-imposed "security" costs
At the International Air Transportation Association's annual aviation security conference earlier this month in Athens, Greece (the location a nod to the anticipated security issues associated with the summer 2004 Olympic Games in Athens), IATA's Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani devoted his keynote address to a demand for governments,... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 27 November 2003
No progress reported by European Commission on USA demands for access to airline reservations
The enforcement of European Union laws against the transfer of airline reservation data (or other personal information collected in the EU) to countries like the USA that lack adequate legal protection for privacy rights was reportedly on the agenda for yesterday's meeting of the European Commission in Brussels. But no... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 25 November 2003
USA airlines say CAPPS-II could cost them "tens of millions of dollars"
This week Ms. Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the Chief Privacy Officer of the USA Department of Homeland Security -- with whom I met last week in Washington, DC (more on that and the PhoCusWright conference of travel executives I attended in Orlando in future articles) -- has posted two more batches... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 14 November 2003
Call for moratorium on RFID tagging of consumer products
In a Position Statement on the Use of RFID on Consumer Products released today, a wide range of privacy and consumer organizations and advocates (including myself) have called for, "a voluntary moratorium on the item-level RFID tagging of consumer items until a formal technology assessment process involving all stakeholders, including... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 13 November 2003
ICAO proposes to require remotely-readable passports by 2006
This week the Technical Advisory Group on Machine Readable Travel Documents (TAG/MRTD) of the International Civil Aviation Organisation , a technical standards organization affiliated with the UN and the ISO , published a formal proposal that all ICAO member countries begin issuing remotely-readable RFID passports by 1 April 2006. The... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 12 November 2003
Setback for "Simplified Travel" field test
Planned airport iris scans illegal Greece's national data protection authority has blocked a test that was scheduled to begin later this month of fingerprinting and iris scans of passengers on Athens-Milan flights. The ruling is a major setback for the joint IATA/SITA Simplifying Passenger Travel (SPT) project, in which "biometric"... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 11 November 2003
"Key escrow" with TSA for airline luggage locks?
In a story apparently slated for general release tomorrow, Joe Sharkey gives advance notice in his column in today's New York Times that the USA Transportation Security Administration will cooperate in a program to sell special luggage locks to which the TSA will have either master keys or a master... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 10 November 2003
Leading travel lawyer calls for privacy law
"There ought to be a law protecting the privacy of travel records, just as there is a law protecting your health records. There also ought to be a federal government agency that enforces the law." So writes Mark Pestronk , legal advice columnist for the influential trade publication for travel... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 7 November 2003
TSA lies to Congress about CAPPS-II
Testifying at a hearing on aviation security Wednesday before the U.S. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Deputy Administrator Stephen McHale repeated the same tired lies about CAPPS-II that the TSA has been telling for months. I found McHale's prepared testimony on the State Department public... (...Read Entire Entry)LAS to use RFID baggage tags
McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas (IATA city and airport code LAS) has signed a 5-year, US$25 million contract to track all baggage checked in by passengers at LAS using 100 million remotely readable, uniquely numbered radio-frequency (RFID) identification tags. Regardless of the merits or demerits of RFID, what got... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 3 November 2003
Privacy issues for group travel
JetBlue Gaffe Adds To Privacy Concerns; RELEASE OF SENSITIVE PASSENGER DATA HIGHLIGHTS LACK OF OVERSIGHT ( Meetings and Conventions magazine, November 2003) Meeting planners and group travel organizers and coordinators are beginning to wake up to the risks they face -- and the lack of protection they have -- if... (...Read Entire Entry)Saturday, 1 November 2003
Europe and U.S. (Still) at Odds on Airlines and Privacy
In an article in the travel section of tomorrow's New York Times , Europe and U.S. at Odds on Airlines and Privacy (already available on the Times Web site; free registration and cookie acceptance required), Times correspondent John Tagliabue reports from Paris that, "The trans-Atlantic differences [over travel data privacy]... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 30 October 2003
Canada to remove privacy clause from CRS regulations
Transport Canada has published proposed revisions to the Canadian Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) Regulations in the Canada Gazette . Section 28 (2) of the current regulations provides as follows: Personal Booking Information 28. (2) A system vendor shall not make personal information about a passenger available to others not involved... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 28 October 2003
Thank you, France
Air Transport World online reports on "a meeting yesterday between French Secretary of State for Transportation Dominique Bussereau and Asa Hutchinson, US Dept. of Homeland Security under secretary for border and transportation security", US-French talks center on passenger rights issue According to the story, Bussereau told Hutchinson that, "a number... (...Read Entire Entry)USA visitor fingerprint and photo database to include travel data
Today the USA Department of Homeland Security gave its first public demonstration and explanation of the new systems for foreign visitors that will be deployed at USA international airports and seaports starting 31 December 2003 (press release, fact sheet, FAQ ). As part of the 'US-VISIT" program, all visitors who... (...Read Entire Entry)Sunday, 26 October 2003
Eyewitness to presentation on jetBlue passenger profiling
I had a long chat this week with Brian Lawson, business reporter for the Huntsville [AL] Times. He called me in the course of his research for a follow-up story on Huntsville military contractor Torch Concepts and its use of jetBlue Airways' passenger database for tests of airline passenger profiling... (...Read Entire Entry)Friday, 24 October 2003
Admiral Loy nominated for promotion from TSA
Coast Guard Admiral James M. Loy, currently Administrator ("Under Secretary of Transportation for Security") of the Transportation Security Administration of the USA Department of Homeland Security, has been nominated for a promotion to the second-highest position in the DHS, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. In the revolving door that has... (...Read Entire Entry)Thursday, 23 October 2003
Congress, think tank discuss mining and aggregating travel data
At least some members of Congress still seem to be under the delusion that anyone knows what the airline reservation of a would-be terrorist would look like, according to this report in Wired News "When somebody buys a ticket on Delta Airlines in Munich, Germany, if there's any potential for... (...Read Entire Entry)Personal data stored on hotel card-key mag stripes
As tracked down (in spite of the initial skepticism of your truly about his initial less detailed reports) and posted by Jay Melnick of TravelBank Systems on his own Web site and in the Travel Guide Writers' Email List, here's more on the storage of personal information from reservation records... (...Read Entire Entry)Bad idea of the day
Venture to Offer ID Card for Use at Security Checks (N.Y. Times, free registration and cookie acceptance required) "Today a new company, Verified Identity Card Inc., which will offer customers an electronic card containing data showing that they are not on terrorism watch lists and do not have certain felony... (...Read Entire Entry)Wednesday, 22 October 2003
"America, land of sheep..."
Marita Adair of GuidebookWriters.com sent me a clipping of this cartoon by David Horsey from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (Also available here .) Baa, baa, black sheep?... (...Read Entire Entry)U.S. Supreme Court to rule on law requiring ID
The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear an appeal of a Nevada Supreme Court decision upholding a conviction for "resisting a public officer" based solely on the defendant's refusal to identify himself. Freetotravel.org has links to court documents and news reports about the case. Fascinating. Very frightening -- I... (...Read Entire Entry)Tuesday, 21 October 2003
USA airlines say privacy must come before CAPPS-II tests
According to this article in today's Christian Science Monitor, "The Air Transport Association, which represents America's commercial airlines, is just as adamant that proper protections be put in place before they give anyone's private information to the government. They're particularly sensitive since the recent controversy over JetBlue, which provided a... (...Read Entire Entry)Monday, 20 October 2003
Business travel convention discusses CAPPS-II and EU privacy rules
The privacy of business travel records, and the diplomatic dispute between the European Union and the USA over the lack of a travel privacy law in the USA, was a major topic of discussion at the [USA] Association of Corporate Travel Executives convention last week in Dublin, Ireland. According to... (...Read Entire Entry)Link |
Posted by Edward, 20 October 2003, 21:36 ( 9:36 PM)
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Senators ask questions about jetBlue
In a letter sent Friday, 17 October 2003, to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, three members of the US Senate are demanding answers from the Department of Defense to some (but by no means all) of the many lingering questions about the acquisition and use by a DoD subcontractor, "Torch Concepts,... (...Read Entire Entry)Link |
Posted by Edward, 20 October 2003, 21:17 ( 9:17 PM)
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European Parliament resolution on travel data transfers to the USA
On 9 October 2003 the full European Parliament adopted a resolution finding that "it is currently not possible to consider the data protection [for travel reservation records] provided by the US authorities to be adequate" and calling for enforcement action if adequate privacy safeguards for travel records aren't put in... (...Read Entire Entry)Link |
Posted by Edward, 20 October 2003, 20:41 ( 8:41 PM)
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