Oct

8

More Turbulence for Secure Flight

[From Wired News]

By Associated Press
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69052,00.html

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are looking to put more checks on the Transportation Security Administration’s long-running effort to come up with a new way to conduct background checks on airline passengers.

The project, Secure Flight, is supposed to allow the government to take over from the airlines the daily duty of checking about 1.8 million air travelers’ names against terrorist watch lists.

That goal has proven elusive. Since work began on it shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Secure Flight has been hampered by concerns about privacy and management.

As a result, Congress has ordered an unusual amount of scrutiny over the project. Twice lawmakers have prohibited the Transportation Security Administration from going live with Secure Flight until the Government Accountability Office reports that it meets several conditions.

Those include assurances that the system is accurate, that the technology ensures privacy, that safeguards exist to prevent abuse, and that passengers who think they were mistakenly identified as a threat have some recourse.

The GAO reported that TSA failed to meet most of those criteria in February 2004 and in March.

Continue reading More Turbulence for Secure Flight at Wired News

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