I’m not usually one to be paranoid about my data with various companies, since I’ve kind of given up on the concept of thinking there’s any privacy in the world. Even so, this sure feels to me like it crosses some line, no?
In this post:
Airlines are brokering our data to the government
View from the Wing flags a 404 Media investigation, about how airlines are secretly selling our data to the government, but don’t want us to know.
To start, let me of course mention that there’s some information the government automatically gets access to when we travel by air. When we book a flight that touches the United States, we have to provide our Secure Flight data, which includes our name, date of birth, gender, etc. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has access to that, though the records are ordinarily only retained for seven days after travel.
As it turns out, there’s information being shared in another way as well, according to an investigation. The Airline Reporting Corporation is owned by several large airlines. On the surface, the company provides ticket transaction settlement services between airlines, travel agencies, and travel management companies, that sell their products in the United States.
As it turns out, the company is also selling passenger data to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The contract between The Airline Reporting Corporation and the CBP specifically stipulates that the government can’t admit where it got that data.
The CBP pays for this data to “support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest,” and this includes sharing passenger names, full domestic flight itineraries, payment details, and more. Since all reservation details are made available, that means the government even knows everything from your meal preferences, to your preferred seats.
There are reportedly around one billion records searchable, by name, credit card, airline, etc., and it applies to roughly 39 months of travel history, plus upcoming bookings. One interesting quirk is that the data captured is limited to bookings made through travel agencies, and not those made directly with airlines.
The CBP claims that this data is only used during open investigations, and claims it adheres to strict privacy policies. For some reason, I don’t find that to be so reassuring, when the information is being obtained in the first place under the condition that the source isn’t revealed.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but…?
As I said at the beginning of the post, I generally don’t assume that I have much privacy with my data. Of course airlines reserve the right to use your data in certain ways, though I think that most of us assumed that they weren’t actively secretly selling this data to the government?
Ultimately I don’t have much to hide, so this doesn’t concern me, personally. I mean, maybe the government will figure out that I generally order vegetarian or fish dishes, over meat. The horror!
However, I think the part that makes me slightly uneasy is that this agreement literally stipulates that the government can’t even reveal where it got this information, which sure suggests that various parties realize that what they’re doing might not be very well received. So it’s the attempted secrecy here that concerns me.
I’m curious, when the government is paying for this information, do we think this means they’re just paying a small amount that covers the fee of accessing this, or is the company actually making a material amount of money from this venture? What incentive do airlines have to cooperate in this way?
In all honesty, this won’t impact any of my behavior, it’s just an interesting thing to know about, as I hadn’t assumed this was happening. I suppose for those who are very concerned about their data, this is an added incentive to book directly with airlines, as that avoids this data being shared.
Bottom line
An investigation has revealed that The Airline Reporting Corporation is reportedly selling our airline data to the government. The government has access to roughly a billion records, covering 39 months of travel history, plus future bookings.
While we knew that the government had access to some of our travel details via Secure Flight details, this is a concerning level of information sharing, if you ask me.
What do you make of this revelation about passenger data being sold to the government?
Recently I had a long discussion with someone who works with Customs and Border Protection at SFO. He said that they do background checks on everyone flying in internationally and they sometimes have law enforcement meet people as they’re getting off the plane.
I think you are all grossly overestimating the intelligence and abilities of the people that make up our government at every level. It is where the “C” students went to take long lunches and get good benefits. Remember COVID? I’m not too worried about their grand plans for interpolating my flight data with AI hoping to learn my secrets.
Thanks for supplying the supremely well-informed MAGA take on federal employees for this forum. Your naivety and arrogance are key building blocks for deepening the government's surveillance mechanisms, which is a bad outcome irrespective of which party controls the White House.
- ex-IC "C" Student
Today's US electorate values physical safety over freedom. The result is that Fourth Ammendment protections seem to be eroding, at least when it comes to electronically stored data and communications.
This is part of to how they targeted passengers when they conducted jetway cash seizures
Great, now Big Balls has all the details of your status runs.
If people are unhappy about this the solution is to provide that feedback directly to the airlines. If they back down when enough people freak out about change to the FF programs gets them to back down they’ll likely back down here. This is an unpleasant PR mess.
Working for an Airline IT provider I'm surprised you're surprised. This is public knowledge that passenger names and itineraries are shared (not sold) to the countries involved in the itinerary (and in the case of the EU, to all EU countries whenever the itinerary involves the EU).
At least the EU has made it public knowledge, but I don't think other governments made a secret out of it.
Some countries (Russia and US mostly) also...
Working for an Airline IT provider I'm surprised you're surprised. This is public knowledge that passenger names and itineraries are shared (not sold) to the countries involved in the itinerary (and in the case of the EU, to all EU countries whenever the itinerary involves the EU).
At least the EU has made it public knowledge, but I don't think other governments made a secret out of it.
Some countries (Russia and US mostly) also get a push of travellers who overfly their territory, which is used both for security and for charging an airspace tax.
Could you just clarify this part? Is the information requested by EU member authorities managed in line with the GDPR? In other words, do I have the right to write to that firm, or to the ministry of interior of e.g. the Kingdom of Spain and ask them to tell me what itinerary data they have on me, and then proceed scrutinise both its accuracy and the extent to which it complies with principles such as data minimisation?
Thanks in advance!
GDPR justifies every lawful interest in passengers' data. Then it is up to the country to define the lawful interest.
You can send the information request to the corresponding authority with the question about the data they have on you, according to the local procedure of course.
Since when does EU collect such data? There's not even an API requirement in most of the EU (bar a few member states).
You're also followed around with automated license plate readers by a company called Flock. Your location data is sold without a warrant by app vendors such as Foursquare, and cell site location data is readily available without a warrant from mobile carriers as well. Every minute of every day, the American police state is following you, tracking you, and keeping everything about you in a Palantir database that is about to get much larger because...
You're also followed around with automated license plate readers by a company called Flock. Your location data is sold without a warrant by app vendors such as Foursquare, and cell site location data is readily available without a warrant from mobile carriers as well. Every minute of every day, the American police state is following you, tracking you, and keeping everything about you in a Palantir database that is about to get much larger because your federal data (such as tax filings) is now being integrated as well.
Fortunately we can trust the Trump regime to always do the right things with this power, and entirely in good faith. Right?
This is why I opt out of biometrics for TSA.
Then they AI will be trained without your picture. Not a big deal for them.
I have no active account on Facebook, X, or Instagram. People laughed in my face years ago because I didn't want to tell the world at large of how I do my laundry. This was coming a long time ago and just like with COVID the sheep easily went along. We're past the point of turning back.
@George: I have no accounts on any SM platform either. The only one I used to use was Linkedin, but deleted my account a few years ago, when I discovered bad actors were gaining access to create synthetic identities using data derived from the site.
The organizations such as the CFPB that were created to protect consumers have also been gutted and the privacy laws that were in place to stop data brokers from...
@George: I have no accounts on any SM platform either. The only one I used to use was Linkedin, but deleted my account a few years ago, when I discovered bad actors were gaining access to create synthetic identities using data derived from the site.
The organizations such as the CFPB that were created to protect consumers have also been gutted and the privacy laws that were in place to stop data brokers from selling your information without at least advising you, have all been thrown out by the chump administration. If you think it is bad now, just wait until bad actors begin to trade your data and purchase it from data brokers.
CBP started doing this back in 2018, buying up cell phone location data to crack down on illegal border crossing and drug smuggling. The problem is that without any oversight or data protection rules, that information and other info purchased through the data broker "loophole" can very easily be used for nefarious purposes by the government and probably will be used for such by the current admin.
There was legislation with bipartisan support to prevent...
CBP started doing this back in 2018, buying up cell phone location data to crack down on illegal border crossing and drug smuggling. The problem is that without any oversight or data protection rules, that information and other info purchased through the data broker "loophole" can very easily be used for nefarious purposes by the government and probably will be used for such by the current admin.
There was legislation with bipartisan support to prevent this, it passed in 2024 in the House but hasn't gotten anywhere in the Senate despite having sponsors on both sides of the aisle. With the current admin, it probably won't pass the senate. Thanks, you know who you are.
We are so obsessed and paranoid about foreign governments snooping on our private lives and data without fighting back what our government and big businesses impede on ours. Take an example, it is not a political hit job, of TikTok. Nobody can convince me that TikTok will endanger national security and personal freedom much more than Fox Channels, not news, NewsMax, etc.. and alike. A former Australian PM declared that Australia and UK should have...
We are so obsessed and paranoid about foreign governments snooping on our private lives and data without fighting back what our government and big businesses impede on ours. Take an example, it is not a political hit job, of TikTok. Nobody can convince me that TikTok will endanger national security and personal freedom much more than Fox Channels, not news, NewsMax, etc.. and alike. A former Australian PM declared that Australia and UK should have buried Murdoch's news empire before it reached US shore. Now we have NewsMax that is more wacky than Fox Channels and migrates more audience from Fox Channels.
Stalin's close confidant once declared " Show me a man. I will find his crimes."
It is the path that the our government is headed to.
I disagree with you on Tiktok. Data collection by ANY government is an issue, whether it's by your own government or foreign ones. RWNJs building Fox, NewsMax, the right-wing podcast sphere with Tim Pool and Rogan and all those crazies, is definitely an issue. But so is Tiktok. Tiktok is insidious, because people think it's just Chinese Instagram. But it functions the same way as the right-wing media empire, spreading misinformation/disinformation, only in conjunction with...
I disagree with you on Tiktok. Data collection by ANY government is an issue, whether it's by your own government or foreign ones. RWNJs building Fox, NewsMax, the right-wing podcast sphere with Tim Pool and Rogan and all those crazies, is definitely an issue. But so is Tiktok. Tiktok is insidious, because people think it's just Chinese Instagram. But it functions the same way as the right-wing media empire, spreading misinformation/disinformation, only in conjunction with the Chinese Communist Party's goals instead of Russia's or Heritage Foundation's. Just because it isn't in-your-face bombastic about it like Fox doesn't mean it isn't happening. That should have been obvious when ByteDance got Zoomers to make threatening phone calls to our elected representatives, refused to disclose how the algorithm works, and refused to divest into a non-PRC owned corporation to continue operations in the US. Hell, when Zoomers started going to actual Chinese Tiktok (Douyin), China quickly cracked down on the new accounts because they didn't want westerners interacting with their own people. This is the regime that runs Tiktok, it's not benevolent in the slightest.
While the % of tickets being processed by the US GDS (which ARC receives for settlement) is likely significantly lower than what's booked directly, I do know that ARC also gets lots of ticket data directly from the airlines, joins it with their data, and sells analytics back to the member carriers. I wonder if that data is also included.
Also last I heard, if you're concerned about safety of your data, fly Southwest. While...
While the % of tickets being processed by the US GDS (which ARC receives for settlement) is likely significantly lower than what's booked directly, I do know that ARC also gets lots of ticket data directly from the airlines, joins it with their data, and sells analytics back to the member carriers. I wonder if that data is also included.
Also last I heard, if you're concerned about safety of your data, fly Southwest. While they are a member carrier of ARC, they don't give ARC their data, and historically a tiny fraction of their tickets went through Sabre.
WN of the past or WN now that uses Amadeus?
@Tim,
It doesn't matter, as long as it directly booked with WN. Admittedly, it's been a few years since I worked with ARC, so maybe that's changed if WN now sends their data to ARC.
But good point about Sabre. When they were running the old Cowboy RES, the only external distribution channel was Sabre. I don't know if they have other distribution channels since they moved to Amadeus.
I can't say I'm surprised this is happening. My response to others is always the same though. "You have this information now, what are you gonna do about it?"
Nothing.
This sneer, as well as your subsequent response, shows your low intelligence.
1) being obstinate is a clear red flag
2) lacking the ability, or failing, to conceive of anything that can be done with the collected data is another red flag
I have read numerous comments of yours and they fit the pattern of a low-intellect commenter.
Same. Thanks ChatGPT.
I suspect there are some consent laws that we have agreed to without understanding the implications.
Governments worldwide know what happens with travel information; the depth of the data may differ but there is no such thing as anonymous travel other than perhaps a few feet from your home.
Wow. Horrible take. Every ethical person knows "consent" to be shorthand for informed consent, the kind where the party giving consent does so in a sound frame of mind and with a thorough understanding of all implications.
of course we know that which is why we quickly stroll through lengthy online consent forms and then acted surprised when someone points out what we have allowed.
the point is for someone to get back when this has proven to be illegal and for which there was no consent but I suspect that there were lawyers who knew exactly what they were doing when this was set up.
Some on here will say “the government has the right to track data for purpose “x,” which right now they say is to go after criminals and undocumented immigrants.
What happens when they decide anyone who disagrees with them with the government is an enemy of the state and they start weaponizing this data against them. And, what when the next administration comes in and decides to go even further or when the pendulum...
Some on here will say “the government has the right to track data for purpose “x,” which right now they say is to go after criminals and undocumented immigrants.
What happens when they decide anyone who disagrees with them with the government is an enemy of the state and they start weaponizing this data against them. And, what when the next administration comes in and decides to go even further or when the pendulum swings back the people who support this today are tomorrow’s state enemies.
Remember…this data is being handled by politicians who think chemtrails are a secret plot to poison people and control the weather.
When they decide? The current administration decided on November 6, 2024 immediately upon clinching victory.
You are the product. Just wait until AI becomes wide spread. You will be tracked like a fox running from a bloodhound.
Tulsi Gabbard has already made it clear that is the direction the government is heading.
Tracked? AI will be able to predict where you will go and will price tickets accordingly! AI will predict how much you will pay and when you will refuse, then price it 1 cent below the refusal point.
I agree with your take regarding the wishful thinking that our personal data being actually protected and kept private, regardless of data privacy laws. I assume the government knows everything we do when we use a credit card to purchase anything, especially travel related transactions. Our data is sold and resold so many times we should be getting a commission. As the old saying goes "when a service or platform offers their product for free,...
I agree with your take regarding the wishful thinking that our personal data being actually protected and kept private, regardless of data privacy laws. I assume the government knows everything we do when we use a credit card to purchase anything, especially travel related transactions. Our data is sold and resold so many times we should be getting a commission. As the old saying goes "when a service or platform offers their product for free, you become the product." Marketing companies have been making billions off our backs, since well before the systems that exist today that make it so easy collect, store and process our personal information. I think it's safe to say that privacy is just an illusion for most of us living in the modern age.
If free for *all*, that observation is valid.
But there are plenty of freemium services where occasional users may make up 99% of the number of users, but consume less than 10% of the resources.
In which case that 10% can sensibly be regarded as a marketing expense.
And the 99% are the marketing force - who receive just a little, but don't lose anything either.
This strikes me as an agency looking for a crime to investigate rather than investigating a criminal. We should be allowed to view what has been collected as long as we are not already the target . Mistakes happen.
The most surprising thing to me was that the government actually pays for this data, rather than just quietly passing a law (or, these days, just issuing an Executive Order) to entitle them to receive it for free.
@RichM
They can't really do either of those quietly, because Trump can't shut up about anything and will absolutely boast about his Big Beautiful EO, and because Republicans in Congress are incapable of passing anything without making a spectacle of it. And that's besides the point that they don't have a filibuster-proof Senate majority, so good luck getting it through the Senate when the Dems see it.