A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.
The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.
Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
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Do foreign airlines that come into the country do this? Would an EU plane be safe from this bullshit?
Since when does a government agency have to pay for receiving a companies data? I guess there is no law for allowing ICE to access that data, and then they just pay instead?
If I had to guess, obtaining the data by force may require a court order or legal process.
Buying data that someone else is willingly selling bypasses those steps.
Any reasonable court would equate requiring a warrant and requiring payment in the context of the 4th amendment (and similar rights/laws in other countries).
I would think and hope that, but evidence tends to point to the contrary.
A quick search brings up multiple articles including:
Guess those EULAS we all agreed to but never read had some sneaky language about what they can do with the data.
At least for foreigners travelling into the US, you’re willingly giving the US govt most of this information up front anyway via the APIS. And paying for the privilege!
Well you could have easily not fucking come here.
Americans are just fucked (and they stole the election so we get to be hated for voting for him while we didn’t even vote for him, our allies have every excuse not to lift a finger to care. Really convenient.)
Unless of course you’re forced to, like for your job. My place would have little to zero sympathy for my personal reasons not to travel unless it’s on a govt advisory not to.
Yeah that’s one of the things that stood out as what the hell… the companies already have the data, if ICE wanted it legally they shouldn’t need to pay… Really shows how shady they’re being.
The government can’t just take every companies data. They absolutely can buy it if that is an option though. Just like how they pay for licenses for software, they can and do pay for data.
Related to crimes, they kinda really can
Correct, but this is about collecting it without any crime.
Which is the problem.
ICE would not be able to legally subpoena these companies for our data, so they buy it from them as a loophole.
Using our tax dollars, of course.
It’s not a loophole though.
As long as programs like 5-Eyes exist you just have to assume every time you interact with a company it is in the hands of all of the governments.
But useful idiots on lemmy keep telling me it’s china doing all the surveillance through companies.
Can’t wait to read about the Palintir FAA merger
Jesus… well, avoid flying trough US if possible.
I drive everywhere. Yeah, I know, fuck cars. But honestly they’re tracking everyone’s movement. Have you noticed all of the intersection cameras that have popped up everywhere? Fuck the authoritarian surveillance state.
They don’t need cameras. Your phone is constantly connecting to cell towers and broadcasting its unique identifier. Those towers keep a record of who has connected. So long as your in range of 3 or more towers they can triangulate your location.
True but I don’t like having my phone on me when I don’t want to be reachable. Sometimes it’s turned off at home.
That is a skill that more of us could use. Myself included
Twelve billion
I thought we we’re approximately 8.2 Billion on earth? Am i missing something?
You’re right, everyone is only allowed one flight per year this doesn’t add up
12 billion passenger is a bad way of saying it, 12 billion flights would’ve been better.
No, passengers is the correct way of saying it. A flight can have hundreds of passengers. A person is a passenger every time they fly a leg on a plane.
Also it’s “passenger flights” in the OP, which would be a record of a passenger on a flight. If a person took 4 flights in one journey, that would count as 4 “passenger flights”.
One person can have multiple flights per year. Its still a huge number considering the billions in Asia who never fly.
Everyone is stealing your data and selling it. Feeding it into AI. Building profiles on you to better send you ads.
Yes. Literally every company. There’s no regulation so to them it’s free money.
The company is jointly owned by nine major airlines, most of which are US-based: Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Air France.
I hope EU starts some investigation, because it doesn’t seem this follows the GDPR for European travelers.
Air Canada
Wtf Air Canada? Air France too
Assuming the data doesn’t include international departures or arrivals (only their domestic counterparts), would GDPR even apply?
I think it applies to eu citizens worldwide for online purposes. You only need to do business in eu with eu clients (seperate terms) for it to apply.
Yea, I guess because they are “selling” vs being compensated for? If the US govt dictates terms to that business under homeland security, GDPR probably wouldn’t matter, but I can only assume since it’s a sale, that’s not the case.
Lufthansa and Air France might have some massive fines incoming.
They better, why tf is Air France collaborating with these ICEholes?
Maximum GDPR fine is 4% of your revenue. For Lufthansa, that would be ~$1.4 billion, Air France ~$650 million, both of which are roughly their entire net income for one year.
Not sure if anyone has been hit with the maximum ever though, as everyone just keeps track of the dollars and not percentage of revenue.
AFAIK no one has triggered the biggest fines (yet?). Can’t wait for it to happen.
I think the biggest one by value is Meta with €1.2b. Although their revenue is in the $150b+ range, so not maxed out.
I’d think that they already have that due to the TSA.
Nice racket. First you pay the airlines for their tickets, then the ICE with your tax dollars to buy your data from said airlines.
Soon they will be taking Americans to their death, too, and I assume no one will do fucking shit as usual.
Did Germans do shit about Hitler? Nope, it was the rest of the world. And, well, one German who did shit about Hitler.
Too bad he didn’t act sooner.
It’s just the TIP of the ICEberg.
Cue the airlines come with hand-wringing to beg the Feds for more bailouts because “nobody is flying anymore.”
Parasitical business practices should lead to market exit.
