US Homeland Security Department accused of violating privacy laws in travel screening

19 May, 2007

The Homeland Security Department of the United States has been charged with breaking the law by not telling the public how exactly personal information is used to screen international travelers, including citizens of the United States.

According to an Associated Press report, the Government Accountability Office makes the assessment about the computer-based system called the Automated Targeting System (ATS). This system is used by the Customs and Border Protection agency to rate the risk posed by travelers coming to and from the United States.

The Government Accountability Office, in its report, says that the Homeland Security Department does not fully comply with privacy laws that require agencies to tell the public how the government uses their personal information.

In its report, the Government Accountability Office, US Congress’ auditing agency, said the Homeland Security Department does not fully comply with the privacy laws that require agencies to tell the public how the government uses their personal information.

The Customs and Border Protection agency’s current disclosures do not fully inform the public about all of its systems for pre-screening aviation passenger information, the Government Accountability Office report said. Nor does the Customs and Border Protection agency explain how it combines data in the prescreening process, as required by law.

The Government Accountability Office said Customs has not publicly disclosed all the sources of data it reviews on passengers, including information obtained from commercial sources. It has not explained what those commercial sources are.

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department defended the program, saying “the Government Accountability Office, in this case, is woefully uninformed and I think that Congress and the public are being poorly served by this report. "This program," he added, "has been the subject of over 20 speeches or testimonies at hearings."

David Sobel, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a rights group, said the amount of detailed public information now available to the government presents more of a concern about privacy today than when the Privacy Act was first enacted after the Watergate scandal.

Bennie Thompson, (Democrat – Mississippi), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also sounded concerned when he said, “while we support rigorous security screening of airline passengers bound for the United States, the Customs and Border Protection agency must conduct this screening in a manner that protects our citizens’ privacy rights.”

The other pre-screening process about which the Government Accountability Office expressed concerns was the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which uses information derived from passports or other government-issued documents such as visas.

The Associated Press had disclosed late in 2006 that the Automated Targeting System used by Customs had been developing risk assessments of millions of Americans over the last four years without their knowledge and that those assessments were to be kept for 40 years and could be shared with state, local and foreign governments.

The ATS programme compares passenger data, such as a passenger’s name, address, credit card information and data from government databases, such as a terrorist screening database, with a set of rules derived from the government’s knowledge of terrorists and criminals.