July 26, 2005

Report Finds Transportation Security Administration Violated Privacy Laws

The Transportation Security Administration violated the federal Privacy Act by creating a database of aviation passenger records that merged airline records with commercial data in an improper way, government auditors said Friday. The violation did not result in the inappropriate release of personal data or wrongly prevent anyone from boarding a plane, the Government Accountability Office report said. But it still violated the law, the report said, because the database included biographical information on 43,000 passengers from private companies, contrary to the agency's promise not to collect and store commercial data.

Flight Database Found to Violate Privacy Law, New York Times, July 23, 2005.