JetBlue TrueBlue - JetBlue gave away pax info to TSA contractor

http://www.dontspyon.us/jetbluescandal.html

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Anyone who flew JetBlue on or before September of 2002 should assume that all information given by them to JetBlue, including credit card numbers, is in the possession of both the TSA and Torch Concepts. </font>

As someone who flew JetBlue before that time, and had a good experience, I am definitely uncomfortable with that idea and will hesitate to book them in the future if it is true.

If this were true, it would make the covers of all major newspapers and be all over Drudge, Fox, and CNN. Sorry, not biting.

Looks like its true:

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=888973

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security -- with help from the Transportation Security Administration. </font>

Jeremiah

I don't buy it one bit, its just a effort to single out jetBlue and make it look back. If you look further into why they want to boycott jetBlue and just look around their site, most of the article states boycott jetBlue and airlines that use the Galileo CRS.... which also includes AA, BA, CO, CX, DL, NW, UA, US, and other airlines... which none of them are mention on their website except for DL.

Also in the artcile it states that jetBlue gave TSA our personal information but I just wonder how jetBlue obtained all that personal information such as SSN because I never gave jetBlue my SSN, if the artcile just said Credit Card Numbers, Personal Addresses, Telephone Numbers, and Travel History on jetblue than its a bit more believable but SSN and homeowner info and all that?

It's very true, read this thread for more details, including a letter from jetblue:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum109/HTML/007147.html

I don't understand the fuss. Profiling passengers certainly should provide greater safety than looking for weapons. You can't develop profiling software without testing it against real data at some point. The data was only used for testing and was detroyed after use.

I think B6 was doing their civic duty in providing data for this limited and important use. Now they say they will only respond to court orders, and that's a shame. Shame on customers who would retaliate against B6 for supporting national security. And shame on B6 for caving in to selfish protests.

Just my opinion. I recognize that there are other opinions on this issue; it's just that they are wrong. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Seriously, if you disagree, please also state for the record whether you believe that passenger profiling is proper. I've got a feeling that virtually all of those protesting this use of data are anti-profiling.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nsx:
I don't understand the fuss. Profiling passengers certainly should provide greater safety than looking for weapons. You can't develop profiling software without testing it against real data at some point. The data was only used for testing and was detroyed after use.

I think B6 was doing their civic duty in providing data for this limited and important use. Now they say they will only respond to court orders, and that's a shame. Shame on customers who would retaliate against B6 for supporting national security. And shame on B6 for caving in to selfish protests.

Just my opinion. I recognize that there are other opinions on this issue; it's just that they are wrong. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Seriously, if you disagree, please also state for the record whether you believe that passenger profiling is proper. I've got a feeling that virtually all of those protesting this use of data are anti-profiling.</font>

I am putting together a model that I assure you is patriotic in nature. That I will also personally profit from it as well is only reasonable and in fact makes it just that much more true-blue American.

Please do your duty as a true, patriotic American and send me your DOB, Social Security number, annual income, home and business addresses and phone numbers, and your primary credit card numbers.

Once again, I assure you this is for your safety and is in fact your patriotic duty to respond. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

This isn't an issue of profiling. It is an issue of JetBlue violating my personal privacy by not first getting my consent to give my personal information to a third party. It doesn't matter that only "historical" data was used, It doesn't matter how noble JetBlue's reasons may have been, it is still wrong. JetBlue does not have the right to violate my rights just because you think that they are only doing "their civic duty". Give me one big, humongous, "I-can't-believe-I am-responding-to-this-nonsense" break...

Seriously...the primary issue for me is that a private company that I do/did business with has unilaterally decided to give my personal information away [to anyone for that matter] without first obtaining my consent.

P.S. I received the same 'canned' response from JetBlue this morning that was mentioned in the thread linked to above.


[This message has been edited by anrkitec (edited 09-19-2003).]

Well stated, but you forgot to say whether or not you believe profiling is proper.

Personally, I do think the reason for the data release matters. For example, medical data is subject to release for research purposes. With reasonable protections against improper use and given the importance of the results in saving lives, I think the privacy worries should take a back seat in this instance. I am not for release of all airline data all the time to any party, even though credit bureaus know more about us than any airline ever will.

"For example, medical data is subject to release for research purposes."

And along with that is a carefully crafted congressional regulation called HIPAA.

This law clearly states that any medical data released for research purposes must first be cleaned of any mention of NAME, ADDRESS, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, or any other information that would allow it to be traced back to an individual.

I wonder how soon the FBI starts gathering and collecting data on all the books every body checks out at the library. Patriot II ACT gives them that power now. Tie that with the credit card info of what you buy, and with TIVO what stations you watch ...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GetReal:
I wonder how soon the FBI starts gathering and collecting data on all the books every body checks out at the library. Patriot II ACT gives them that power now. </font>

Didn't Ashcroft just announce that they have never used this power? It's safe to go back to the library now, but I for one don't mind if people still feel nervous checking out books on how to be a terrorist or sending email to terrorists using library PCs.

My medical analogy was imperfect. Identifying information is of no value to medical research, but it is crucial to profiling.

Judging from the responses so far, it seems to me that the people who oppose any release of data don't want to 'fess up that they also oppose the profiling that it would enable. That is to say, privacy is a major part of their reasoning, but it's not the whole story. If my inference is wrong, and you do support profiling, please correct me.

"Didn't Ashcroft just announce that they have never used this power?"

How comforting. Name one power the Government has been granted that they didn't eventually use.

Using the same "haven't used it yet" logic, I guess we should let people walk around with atomic bombs in their pockets. A terrorist has never set off an atomic bomb.

I agree with profiling, but this isn't profiling. This is the raw capture of a hugh amount of private data (and the cross-reference of this data) from innocent people who the government has no reason to suspect.

This is a fishing expedition into people's private lives. It has nothing to do with profiling, or terrorists for that matter.

Thanks for the reply.

I was under the impression that the data was being used only to test the effectiveness of the profiling software, not to actually catch terrorists. That's why it was historical, rather than current, data. I was also under the impression that the data was never handed over from the software developer to the government. Am I incorrect in this instance?

This strikes me as a reasonable way to develop profiling software, and in fact it would be irresponsible to field "live" profiling software without running such a test. If you can only run the test on data from people who volunteer it, the test is invalid. (Terrorists won't volunteer their data.)

I agree that using this data breaches privacy, but I don't see another way to create the most effective profiling software. Do you have ideas for developing profiling software without access to any historical passenger data? And of course once the system goes live, you would need access to current passenger data in any case. So how is it worse to use historical data now?

Profiling means that Big Brother's software is evaluating everyone's comings and goings and ringing an alarm now and then when the combination of identity and travel pattern look like a threat. I don't like the idea much, but I like it better when I realize that the alternative may end up being a complete shutdown of air travel.

Privacy in air travel will mean nothing if no airline is flying any more. Or if, more likely, all air transport is provided by the US government itself. And those guys won't give us frequent flier miles...

Disgusting. Now, I am a big ACLU supporter, so clearly I'm a tad left of center, but I find this truly revolting.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Analise:
If this were true, it would make the covers of all major newspapers and be all over Drudge, Fox, and CNN. Sorry, not biting. </font>

It is at the top of the front page of today's New York Times. Does that qualify?

This is pretty revolting. The actual presentation is at
http://www.abditum.com/~rabbi/S3B3_Roark.pdf

-J S

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Analise:
If this were true, it would make the covers of all major newspapers and be all over Drudge, Fox, and CNN. Sorry, not biting. </font>

Yet antoher FTer that is never wrong!

If the policy says they wont share your info, then they should not. While I like JetBlue, they should pay a heavty fine for this IMHO and a few people should loose their jobs at the top.

According to this article http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,515033130,00.html all JetBlue gave out was passenger itineraries. It was the private contrator that appears to have merged JetBlue's data with SS #s from credit reports. It seems to me that some people are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

As an occasional JetBlue pax out of Buffalo, this does not bother me - although I respect the views of those who were upset.

and from CNN....

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/09/19/bi.jetblue.privacy.ap/index.html



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Dance as if no one's watching, Sing as if no one's listening and live live everyday as if it were your last

They are now reportedly apologizing!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum135/HTML/000188.html

I wouldn't do you no wrong folks http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Yes, I have posted my share of false stories, but I was pretty sure this was correct, otherwise I would not have posted here.

As they say, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

I think JetBlue did this to make extra money to expand. I think they should have not even thought of giving airline passenger information to a company. I was lucky I have not flown JetBlue during this period of time.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Analise:
If this were true, it would make the covers of all major newspapers and be all over Drudge, Fox, and CNN. Sorry, not biting. </font>

I'm biting now. It's all over the place. It is just so egregious that I just could not believe it. Violating their own security policy? I just wonder.....what other airline is doing this? What other business is doing this? I can't believe that JetBlue is alone. With such news, any other company doing the same thing will be revealed.

Well I hope they have a field day with my information because I fly Jetblue all of the time.

[This message has been edited by Analise (edited 09-23-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by flyhawaii:
I think JetBlue did this to make extra money to expand. I think they should have not even thought of giving airline passenger information to a company. I was lucky I have not flown JetBlue during this period of time. </font>

What a load of c#(@.... You think they got anything worthwhile from a revenue point of view for this??


[This message has been edited by NickP 1K (edited 09-23-2003).]

Whatever the reason, they clearly violated their own stated privacy policy (which does NOT contain any exception for testing of a profiling system). As someone whose travel details were presumably turned over, I'm upset.