"CAPPS II: Airline screening scaled back"

Friday, August 1, 2003

Airline screening scaled back
BUT DATA CHECKS STILL PROMINENT
By Steve Johnson
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News


Heeding complaints from privacy advocates Thursday, federal officials scaled
back their proposed new system for screening airline passengers, but the
agency said it will still check passengers' names against commercial and
government databases.

In addition, the Transportation Security Administration said it might use
the system, expected to go into effect next summer, to track down criminals
and illegal immigrants. Some critics fear that could lead to abuses and
result in widespread government surveillance of the public.

The Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, is being
scaled back in two primary ways from the original proposal in January, said
the TSA.

Officials said they no longer intend to scrutinize passengers' health or
detailed credit information, which had been a major concern of privacy
groups. And the data gathered will only be kept a few days, although the
exact length of time remains unclear. Previously, the agency had said the
information could be stored for up to 50 years.

Some details of how CAPPS II will work are still being hashed out. Federal
officials said they plan to further revise the system after conducting
simulated tests on it and receiving more public comments.

The plan would involve running each passenger's name, address, home phone
number, birth date and ``some information about that passenger's itinerary''
through commercial databases to determine if the passenger is known to those
databases. Government officials say this could help spot foreign terrorists,
who might use phony names or otherwise be unknown to the databases.

Numeric score

Based on the quality of the match between the information provided by the
passenger and what is in the databases, each passenger would get a numeric
score, which would be sent to the TSA. That agency then would check the
names of suspicious people against government databases to determine if they
are known terrorists.

Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland
Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration, said
the changes to the program are ``very positive.''

``The proposed program increases passenger security and strengthens civil
aviation in our country, while respecting the privacy of persons affected by
the system,'' O'Connor said in a statement.

For the most part, privacy advocates were pleased, too.

``It's certainly an improvement over what had been previously proposed,''
said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington. ``I think it's clear that TSA has heard the public
criticism.''

But using the system to identify illegal immigrants and violent criminals --
not just terrorists -- suggests the government may have broader uses in mind
for CAPPS II, said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for
Democracy and Technology in Washington.

``The question is, can you keep this system secure and can you protect
privacy if you're using it for multiple purposes and multiple people have
access to the information?'' Schwartz said. ``The more purposes you start
adding on to this, the more privacy concerns you have.''

CAPPS II was intended to improve the current screening system -- known as
CAPPS I -- which airlines began using in 1998 and which Congress derided as
ineffective after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Given the heightened warnings about possible terrorist attacks using
airlines in the past few days, several passengers at Mineta San Jose
International Airport on Thursday said they would welcome the new system.

Security-conscious

``Anything to do with security, it doesn't bother me,'' said 23-year-old
Anita Tuavao. She said she was pulled aside and questioned by security
officials during her flight from her home in Salt Lake City to San Jose
because she had paid in cash for a one-way ticket, which is considered
suspicious behavior. ``I don't care, as long as we're safe.''

But Marvin Newman, 75, of Boynton Beach, Fla., who flew into San Jose with
his wife, Carol, to visit relatives, said the government's use of CAPPS II
could prove worrisome. ``You have to be very careful as to how far this is
pushed,'' he said.

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