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

A data broker The ownership of the country’s main airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, has collected interior flight files for American travelers, which sold them access to customs and border protection (CBP), then within the framework of the contract declared to CBP not to reveal where the data came, according to the internal documents of the CBP obtained by 404 media. The data includes passenger names, their complete flight routes and financial details.

CBP, which is part of the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS), said that it needs this data to support the state police and local to follow the plane trips of people of interest across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts.

The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least part of the DHS bought this information and comes after immigration and customs application (ICE) have detailed its own purchase of data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it provided theft data.

“The big airlines – through a shaded data broker they have, have sold the government’s bulk access to the American sensitive information, revealing where they are flying and the credit card they used,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement.

ARC is held and exploited by at least eight large American airlines, according to other documents published by the public. The company’s board of directors includes representatives of Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue and European Airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Air Canada of Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on the ARC for ticket settlement services.

The other sectors of ARC activity include being conduit between airlines and travel agencies, finding data trends in data with other companies such as Expedia and fraud prevention, according to the equipment on the chain and the Arc Youtube website. The sale of information on US trips to the government is part of the Intelligence Program on Arc Travel (TIP).

A work statement included in the newly obtained documents, which describes why an agency buys a particular tool or capacity, says that CBP needs access to the Product of the Arc “to support the federal, state and local agencies of the law to identify the American national ticket office of American air tickets of people of interest”. 404 Media obtained the documents through a request from the Freedom of Information Act (Foia).

The new documents obtained by 404 Media also show that ARC asked CBP to “not publicly identify the supplier, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the reports unless the customer is obliged to do so by an order of the valid court or a summons and a summons and gives an immediate opinion to the arc.”

The working state indicates that the trick can show the paid intention of a person to travel and tickets purchased through travel agencies in the United States and its territories. Data from the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) will provide “visibility on national plane travel tickets from a matter or a person of interest as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the United States and its territories”, according to documents. They add that this data will be “crucial” in administrative and criminal affairs.

An assessment of the impact on DHS privacy (PIA) available online indicates that advanced data is updated daily with the sale of watch tickets and contains more than a billion recordings covering 39 months of past and future travel. The document indicates that the tip can be sought by name, credit card or airline, but ARC contains travel agency data accredited by ARC, such as Expedia, and not flights reserved directly with an airline. “If the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, the search carried out by ICE will not appear in an arc report,” said Pia. PIA notes that data has an impact on American and non -American people, which means that it includes information on American citizens.

“Although obtaining data on national airlines – like many other transaction and purchase files – generally does not require a mandate, it is always supposed to go through a legal process which guarantees independent surveillance and limits data collection to files that will support an investigation,” said Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology told 404 media in an email. “As with many other types of sensitive and revealing data, the government seems determined to use data brokers to buy their path around guards and important limits.”

The CBP contract with ARC started in June 2024 and can extend until 2029, according to documents. The CBP Contract 404 Media obtained documents for a transaction of $ 11,025. Last Tuesday, a database on public procurement added an update of $ 6,847.50 of this contract, which declared that it exerted an “option of the year 1”, which means that it extended the contract. The documents are expurd but briefly mention the CBP OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees.