9:47 AM

Wired News: Data Disclosure Contradicts Feds

American Airlines’ announcement Friday that it shared more than a million passenger itineraries with four government contractors reveals that Transportation Security Administration officials have repeatedly issued false statements about the development of the passenger-profiling system known as CAPPS II.

American Airlines joins a growing list of carriers that have come forth in recent months to say that they have shared massive amounts of information about their passengers with the TSA. For the past eight months, TSA officials have repeatedly said they were not collecting this data. But American’s disclosure raises questions about why the department has given false information about its data collection.

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American Airlines is the third major domestic airline to admit sharing vast amounts of customer information to aid government data-mining efforts, following JetBlue’s admission in September 2003 and Northwest Airlines’ admission in January. Both Northwest and American gave false information to the press in the wake of the JetBlue scandal, saying they had never turned over information about their passengers.

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The TSA also apparently failed to inform members of Congress or the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm, about soliciting airline data for its contractors or testing CAPPS II with real data. The GAO released a report in February about the program. According to the report, the TSA told the GAO that CAPPS II has only been tested with 32 itineraries provided by agency employees.