The globe's largest collection of airline ticket data just went to a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Are airlines sharing your travel data with homeland security?
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Most travelers have probably never heard of the
This extensive database was recently acquired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – a division operating under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – as the Trump administration intensified its immigration enforcement efforts. The transferred information includes passenger names, financial specifics, and complete flight plans, according to a report from 404 Media.
According to the Federal Procurement Data System, ARC finalized a contract that gives U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to its Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) database until May 2028. An ARC representative stated that the TIP was "established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to supply specific data... to law enforcement." GovTribe, a platform that tracks federal and state contracts, estimates this agreement's value at $776,750.
Procurement records obtained by The Lever and 404 Media indicate that ICE would be able to search this database using a "traveler/target's" name or credit card information. They'll gain access to "complete flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to acquire."
Upon contacting the Department of Homeland Security, all inquiries were directed to ICE. As of the time of publication, ICE hasn't yet responded.
"I have never encountered government access to ARC – or even ARC itself – mentioned within an airline privacy policy or a travel agency's terms," travel data privacy expert Edward Hasbrouck told The Lever.
ARC is entirely owned and operated by 8 significant airlines: Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Air France. According to its official website, ARC's database contains data representing 54% of all flights taken globally. This information is gathered directly from airlines and through various accredited travel agencies.
Inquiries were sent to all 8 airlines for comment. Alaska Airlines directed questions to the ARC, but the other 7 carriers hadn't responded by the time of publication.
"It comes as a surprise to many Americans right now that their perceived rights in travel are not as robust as they believed," shared Joshua McKenty, former chief cloud architect at NASA and founder of Polyguard.
What travelers need to know
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McKenty advised that travelers, especially foreign nationals visiting the United States, should personally purchase their own flights. He also recommended that immigration lawyers and others involved in the refugee process avoid buying tickets for their clients. Otherwise, their data could become associated in the view of the DHS.
This acquisition of data is occurring simultaneously with the implementation of the Real ID mandate, the expansion of facial recognition technologies at airports, and other ongoing changes impacting travel data privacy.
"The most alarming aspects of biometrics are those that travelers often fail to notice or consider," McKenty explained.
For individuals who are not U.S. citizens, there's no assurance that photos taken at airports will be deleted. In fact, according to official Customs and Border Protection documents, "All biometrics of in-scope [noncitizen] travelers are sent to IDENT/HART as encounters and remain stored for 75 years to support immigration, border management, and law enforcement activities." (HART is an acronym for Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology, representing a DHS biometric identity database.)
Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed concerns regarding HART and sent a letter urgently requesting that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem implement the necessary steps to reduce privacy risks. A GAO report explicitly warns that "HART could be utilized beyond its intended purpose, potentially leading to surveillance of law-abiding individuals and communities."
Privacy advocates also voiced concerns regarding the DHS's practice of collecting immigrant data, including its controversial storage of children's DNA within a criminal database.
Privacy is considered a fundamental human right, formally recognized by Article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, McKenty cautioned that a traveler's right to privacy is evolving rapidly due to government policies and is increasingly being aligned with the current administration's priorities. McKenty suggests that everyone traveling should remain fully aware of their rights, or the absence thereof, while on their journeys.
"The notion that we must violate everyone's privacy in order to search for anything we, as a government, deem suspicious is fundamentally incorrect," McKenty asserted. "We possess legal protections against such government overreach in every other domain."
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