The government must adopt specific privacy protections before implementing a plan to use personal information to rank all airline passengers as potential security threats, the trade group for major US airlines says.
The Air Transport Association said it supports the concept of the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, provided the government follows seven "privacy principles." The Associated Press obtained the list of principles on Tuesday, a day before they were to be unveiled at a House hearing.
The guidelines seek to ensure the Transportation Security Administration collects only personal information pertaining to aviation security, stores it securely and gets rid of it as soon as travel is completed. The airlines also said that passengers must be allowed to access their personal information and correct any errors.
"At the end of the day, the system isn't going to be any good if we can't assure privacy for the flying public's information," ATA President James May said.
The TSA has said it wants to put the program in place this summer. However, that likely will be pushed back because of airlines' reluctance to share passenger records needed to test the plan.
US President George W. Bush's administration has said if the airlines won't voluntarily turn over the records it will order them to do so.
TSA spokesman Dennis Murphy said the government doesn't plan to store passenger information, except for potential terrorists. He said the issue isn't whether people can see their data but if they can redress errors.
"We have what we believe is an effective way to do it but we don't know it's effective until we test it," he said.
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