Airline industry to work on privacy issues
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Major airlines agreed Thursday to work with the Homeland Security Department on ways to protect traveler privacy, a difficult new problem as the government seeks to use passenger information to keep terrorists off planes.
Nuala O'Connor Kelly, Homeland Security's privacy officer, met with top airline executives and said they will meet with the department again to discuss privacy protections for their passengers.
"They seemed receptive to the idea that we need to work on and improve privacy policies and to explain the information sharing necessary," Kelly said.
Airlines support the government's plan to test a computerized aviation security system that compares passenger information with commercial databases and government watch lists. But each company fears being singled out by its customers if it's the only airline to offer the passenger data the government needs to test the system.
At issue is how the passenger data will be treated. Will passengers be told information about them is being shared with the government? Will they have a way to correct information they believe to be incorrect? Will the rules be clear on the purposes for which the data can be shared?
"It's more than a privacy policy on a Web site," Kelly said. "It's having good internal protocols."
Thursday's meeting followed the disclosure last week that Northwest Airlines gave passenger data to the federal government for a similar security project in the three months after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Angry passengers filed a lawsuit, claiming the airline violated its own privacy policy as well as federal and state laws.
Northwest Airlines chief executive Richard Anderson then urged the airline executives to discuss privacy standards for the industry at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Air Transport Association, an industry group.
Northwest said in a statement issued late Wednesday that no further aviation security research with passenger data should be conducted until data protection standards addressing privacy concerns are developed.
JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines also have been criticized for sharing passenger information with the government without telling their customers.
But there was little complaint over the holidays, when a British Airways London-to-Washington flight believed to be targeted by terrorists was routinely delayed as U.S. government officials pored over passenger lists to make sure people linked to terrorism weren't aboard.
The computerized security proposal would screen all passengers for possible terrorist activity by checking their names, addresses, phone numbers and birth dates against the databases.
Suspected terrorists and violent criminals would be forbidden to fly; passengers who raise questions would receive extra security screening; most would simply go through routine screening.
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