Airlines do not want you to know that they sold your flight data to DHS

A data broker Owned by the country’s main airlines, including Delta, American Airlines and United, collected national flights from US travelers, has sold access to customs and borders (CBP), and therefore as part of the contract said to CBP not to reveal where the data come from, according to the internal CBP documents obtained by 404 media. The data includes passenger names, complete flight itineraries and financial details.

CBP, a part of the Homeland Security Department (DHS), claims to need these data to support the state and local police to keep track of the air travel of people of interest throughout the country, in a purchase that has alarmed experts in civil freedoms.

The documents reveal for the first time in detail because at least a part of the DHS has purchased this information and arrives after immigration and the application of customs (ICE) detailed his purchase of data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called Airlines Reporting Corporation (Arc), tells government agencies not to mention where he purchased the flight data.

“The large airlines – through a borker of shady data that have called Arc – are selling access to the government’s bulk to the sensitive information of the Americans, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,” said Senator Ron Wyden in a note.

Arc is owned and managed by at least eight main US airlines, others The publicly published documents show. The company Board of Directors Include representatives of Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue and European Airlines Lufthansa and Air France and Air Canada in Canada. More than 240 Airlines depend on the arch for tickets for tickets for tickets.

The other lines of ARC activity include being the conduit between airlines and travel agencies, Find travel trends In data with other companies such as Expedia and Frode Prevention, according to the material on the channel and on the YouTube website of Arc. The sale of the travel information of the US flyers in the government is part of Arc (Tip) travel intelligence program.

A Declaration of work included in the documents just obtainedWhich describes because an agency is acquiring a particular tool or capacity, states that the CBP needs access to Arc’s top product “to support federal, state and local police law enforcement to identify information on the US air travel tickets.” 404 Media has obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request.

The new documents obtained by 404 media also show that Arc asks CBP to “do not publicly identify the supplier, or its employees, individually or collectively, such as the source of relationships unless the customer is forced to do so by a valid Court order or from a quote and gives a notice in span of the same”.

The declaration of work says that the tip can show the paid intention of a person to travel and the tickets purchased through travel agencies in the United States and in its territories. The data of the Travel Intelligence Program (Tip) will provide “visibility on information on the ticket office for national air travel of a subject or of interest, as well as the tickets acquired through travel agencies in the United States and in its territories”, say the documents. They add that these data will be “crucial” both in administrative and criminal cases.

A DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (Pia) Available online He says that the suggestions data is updated daily with the sale of tickets of the previous day and contain more than a billion records that embrace 39 months of past and future trips. The document says that the tip can be sought by name, credit card or airline, but the arch contains data of accredited travel agencies, such as Expedia, and not the flights booked directly with an airline. “If the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, the search carried out by Ice will not present himself in an Arc report,” says Pia. The PIA notes that the data affect both the United States and in non -US people, which means that it includes information on US citizens.

“While obtaining the data of the domestic airlines, like many other records of transactions and purchases, generally does not require a mandate, it should still pass through a legal process that guarantees independent supervision and limits the collection of record data that will support an investigation”, Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project, said to 404 Average in an e -mail. “As for many other types of sensitive and detectors data, the government seems intent on using data brokers to buy important guardrails and limits.”

The CBP contract with Arc began in June 2024 and can extend until 2029, according to the documents. The CBP 404 Media contract obtained documents for it was a $ 11,025 transaction. Last Tuesday, a public supply database added an update of $ 6,847.50 to that contract, which stated that it was exercising “option year 1”, which means it was extending the contract. The documents are drawn up but briefly mention the CBP OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in The part investigates corruption by CBP employees.