US Transportation Security Administration’s extra airline-passenger vetting from August 15, 2009

The United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will, from August 15, 2009, require airlines to collect additional information for every passenger booking a new flight.  The new programme of the US Transportation Security Administration – called the Secure Flight programme – requires airlines to collect full name, birth date and gender of every passenger at the time of booking.

This additional data, a statement from the TSA said, will “help keep flights safer as well as reduce the number of false positive” matches to the federal “terrorist-watch lists.”

Gale Rossides, acting Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said in the statement that, by augmenting and streamlining the process of matching the terrorist-watch lists, the Secure Flight programme makes travel “safer and easier for millions of Americans.”

The information provided to the airline by each passenger must have to be identical to the information on the identification – issued by the US federal government – used by the passenger at the time of booking.

The most commonly used identification objects used to check in and board a flight are passports and the driver’s licence.

The requirement for additional passenger information, according to Gale Rossides, is a part of the Secure Flight programme, which aims at vetting all airline passengers through the federal watch-lists.

In fact, the vetting of passengers that starts on August 15, 2009, is only the first phase of the larger Secure Flight programme, which aims at vetting 100 per cent of airline passengers on all domestic commercial flights by early 2010, through the Transportation Security Administration’s watch-lists.

All passengers on all international flights will be vetted by the end of 2010,

The TSA claims that the Secure Flight programme “is a better way to prevent dangerous travellers from boarding aircraft” and it also avoids “confusion” for passengers with names similar to those on the federal government’s ‘No Fly’ list and ‘Selectee’ list.

Both the ‘No Fly’ list and ‘Selectee’ list bar some aspiring air passengers and mark some other passengers for “enhanced screenings” at the airport’s security checkpoints.

Apart from the additional information required of passengers, the statement from the TSA explained, passengers who have had “confusion” regarding the watch-list can include a ‘redress number.’

The ‘redress number’ is issued to a cleared traveller who has been stopped or delayed on account of “similar names” or such other confusion.

The Transportation Security Administration is the United States government’s law enforcement agency that is responsible for security in all modes of transportation in the country.

The TSA took over the task of security screening at airports following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.