Feds mulling new airline surveillance system

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February 01, 2002 (Computerworld) -- WASHINGTON -- Federal transportation security officials plan to begin testing a new network that would enable security officials to collect and analyze a vast array of personal data on airline passengers in an attempt to weed out terrorists before they can get aboard aircraft.

The system would link every reservation system in the country with a number of private and government databases. Through the use of data mining and predictive software analysis, it would analyze personal travel histories, unusual relationships among passengers aboard particular flights and a wealth of other data for clues to potential threats.

A final decision on whether to move ahead with the test or deploy an operational system hasn't been made yet. That decision will be made by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is currently evaluating two prototype technologies. The TSA couldn't be reached for comment today.

HNC Software, a San Diego-based firm that develops risk-detection software, is leading a team of companies to build one of the two main prototypes. HNC is working with Houston-based PROS Revenue Management Inc., which already supplies customer analytic software to 17 of the top 25 U.S. airlines, and Acxiom Corp., a data marketing firm in Little Rock, Ark., that collects information on land records, car ownership, magazine subscriptions and telephone numbers.

Joseph Sirosh, executive director for research and development at HNC, said his company's technology is currently used to detect credit card fraud in the private sector. It is based on neural network technology that can pick out vague relationships between data that may indicate the potential for terrorist activity, he said.

HNC is currently talking to both the TSA and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. about the feasibility of deploying the technology throughout airports, said Sirosh.

"The data will have to come from the airlines, he said. "It will have to be pooled, and we will have to have a way to get the analysis to the various checkpoints around the airports," Sirosh said, indicating that if and when a deployment decision is made, the system may require airlines to invest in additional IT infrastructure.

Reports of the system have already raised concerns among some privacy experts, who view the analysis of such data on all air travelers as a potential threat to civil liberties.

Steve Kobrin, a professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who specializes in privacy issues, said he's concerned that such a system may tip the balance between security and privacy in the wrong direction.

"Is it really necessary to track every move of every air traveler to secure our skies?" asked Kobrin. "There is a long history of data being used for purposes other than for which it was collected, and the potential for abuse here is enormous."

However, Sirosh said, the system currently being studied will have built-in privacy protections. "To the system, the information is just data. No human beings will actually be looking at personal data or making ad hoc judgments of any kind," he said. Rather, individuals will be rated on a threat scale, and warnings will be sent electronically to authorities at screening locations to inspect those individuals with higher threat ratings more closely, Sirosh said.

"It will all depend on how high on the scale of risk an individual is," he said.

Related stories:

• Feds' confusion greets airlines, Jan. 21, 2002



• Privacy group files suit over profiling data sold to government, Jan. 16, 2002



• Proposed federal privacy law would override states, Oct. 22, 2001

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