San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked members of the public to urge the Privacy Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protect citizens' privacy in proposed tests of an airline passenger screening program administered by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The plan, called the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System (CAPPS II), will allow travel authorities to access personal information about each passenger from government and commercial databases.
Because even some of the most critical government and commercial databases have faulty data, authorities who rely on systems like CAPPS II run the risk of misidentifying individuals and "tagging" them as a security risk, even forbidding passengers to board a plane. Once available, travel authorities or others may use this sensitive data for purposes other than identifying potential threats to passengers aboard airplanes.
"We recognize the need for the government to protect passengers' safety, but at the same time, air travel has become a vital and essential part of our lives," said EFF Washington Policy Liaison Lisa Dean. "We hope to continue our dialogue with the Department of Homeland Security and related agencies in order to ensure the protection of the rights of individuals."
"We're concerned that the Homeland Security Department's CAPPS-II plan sacrifices the privacy and civil liberties of travelers without a logical connection to safety and security," said EFF Attorney Kevin Bankston, an Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "We urge travelers and concerned members of the public to express their views to the government and urge protection of our basic right to travel privacy while implementing security measures that are effective in preventing terrorism."
Lisa Dean
Washington Policy Liaison
Electronic Frontier Foundation
lisa@eff.org
Kevin Bankston
Attorney, Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
