Bare it all
A new national system to prescreen air travellers for security risks could mean sacrificing the privacy of passengers, reports Anayat Durrani from Los Angeles
The programme is called CAPPS II -- the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II -- and was ordered by Congress after the 11 September attacks. Under the new system, customers purchasing a ticket on a commercial airlines will undergo a background check before they even set foot in the airport. When booking a seat, passengers will be required to provide their full name, address, phone number and date of birth. The nationwide computer system will then check passenger's credit reports, bank account activity and other personal information. It will also compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.
Based on the information obtained, a passenger will then be assigned a threat level -- green, yellow, or red. Green means a passenger is no risk; yellow means additional screening is required; and red means the passenger will not be allowed to fly. A traveller's risk level will be encrypted and included on the boarding pass. Those in favour of the new system say it will effectively identify possible threatening passengers but spare law-abiding citizens from unnecessary scrutiny.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) awarded a $12.8 million contract on Friday to Lockheed Martin Corporation to construct and administer the full national system. The TSA plans to test the system with Delta Air Lines at three medium-sized airports in March, and the pilot study is expected to run until June. A full system could be in place by the end of the year, despite privacy concerns. The TSA previously focussed on screening for guns and explosives.
CAPPS II is a more advanced version of a programme run by the airlines, which was created by Northwest Airlines in the early 1990s to identify potential hijackers. Under the original system airlines maintained their own travel data and assigned a risk level based on criteria such as one-way ticket and cash purchases. However, while passengers' data remained with the airlines' reservation system, CAPPS II will be managed by TSA. A Federal Register notice was filed in January stating that some of the data generated by the system will be stored for 50 years. Information could be shared with federal, state and local government agencies, with intelligence agencies such as the CIA and also with foreign governments and international agencies.
Opponents of the programme say this profiling constitutes an invasion of privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) expressed concern over the new system saying it will create a government blacklist of Americans. "This system threatens to create a permanent blacklisted underclass of Americans who cannot travel freely," said Katie Corrigan, an ACLU legislative counsel. "Unfortunately, history suggests that the government will be capricious, unfair and politically biased in deciding who to stamp as suspect. Anyone could get caught up in this system, with no way to get out."
Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program said, "we are all concerned about airline security, but we must not let the unique needs in our airports give the government an opening to create the kind of Big Brother programme that Americans rejected so resoundingly in the Pentagon."
Moreover, Steinhardt indicated that the new system was not restricted to air transport but will eventually include all forms of transportation. "Once the infrastructure for a system of government files and security ratings on American citizens is built, it won't be limited to air transportation for very long," said Steinhardt. "Nothing like it has ever been done in this country."
The new system could collect information about individuals such as financial and business transaction data. Passengers will not be informed of exactly what information is being used to determine their risk factor. The transportation agency did say it will not engage in racial or religious profiling, but did not specify what databases or criteria it will use to determine if a passenger should be flagged.
"Despite the potentially serious consequences of being accused by your own government of being a security risk, CAPPS II would not allow innocent Americans to see the information that such a designation was based on, would not permit them a meaningful way to appeal, and would not reveal the criteria on which such judgments were based so they could avoid suspicion in the future," said Corrigan. "In fact, individuals would not even have the right to confirm how they have been labelled."
The TSA says it will work with privacy groups and others to address their fears. It has set up an oversight panel to resolve complaints from individuals who feel they have been mistakenly flagged.
"CAPPS II threatens our liberty, but its security benefits are far from clear. It will leave security screeners at sea in an ocean of private data; some of that data will be fraudulent, and much of it just plain wrong," said Steinhardt. "CAPPS II is apparently based on the belief that you can find a needle in a haystack by adding more hay to the stack."
