JetBlue TrueBlue - JetBlue Responds to Customers' Privacy Concerns

JetBlue Responds to Customers' Privacy Concerns

JetBlue Airways , responding to concerned customers and incensed privacy advocates who learned that it provided passenger itinerary information to a Defense Department contractor for a nonairline security project, last week began e-mailing an apologetic explanation from its chief executive officer, todays, (Monday's) Wall Street Journal reports...

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030922/0038000026_1.html

JetBlue won't help test airline security program

JetBlue Airways Corp. JBLU.O , which admitted last week that it gave personal data on more than 1 million passengers to a Pentagon contractor, on Monday said it will not participate in a controversial federal airline passenger profiling program.

JetBlue had entered talks with the Transportation Security Administration to become a test airline for the government's new Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, known as CAPPS II.

The program would sift through private databases and government records to verify passengers' identities, as part of a push for heightened airline security by the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

"(JetBlue) decided against further participation unless federally mandated due to concerns for customer privacy and the uncertainty of the final structure of CAPPS II," the airline said in a written statement.

http://reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=governmentFilingsNew s&storyID=3489026

If any good came out of this issue... JetBlue backing out of supporting CAPPS II is it... Now if NWA would follow suit http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Yes, wish all airlines would!

---

JetBlue Target of Inquiries by 2 Agencies

Two federal agencies announced today that they had opened investigations into JetBlue Airways in response to the airline's admission that it had provided travel records on more than a million passengers to a Pentagon contractor, violating its own privacy rules.

The moves by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission came as JetBlue disclosed that it had hired Deloitte & Touche, the accounting firm, to review the company's privacy policies and determine if they needed to be revamped.

The fast-growing three-year-old airline, which is based in New York and has worked to build a reputation for bargain fares and customer-friendly policies, apologized to customers last week after disclosing that it provided an Army contractor with more than five million computer files, reflecting the travel records of 1.1 million passengers in 2001 and 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/business/23PRIV.html

---

JetBlue sued for disclosing passenger information to Defense contractor

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/030923/na_fin_us_jetblue_lawsuit_2.html


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

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">JetBlue Airways Chief Executive David Neeleman, speaking out publicly for the first time Monday on last week's privacy flap at the 3-year-old air carrier, said the company did the wrong thing for the right patriotic reasons.
The New York-based airline remains under scrutiny by privacy advocates for disclosing passenger information to a U.S. Defense Department contractor developing a program to improve security on military bases. Last week JetBlue was the target of two lawsuits and a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission for its actions.
Yet Neeleman, who acknowledged JetBlue's security department violated company policy when it released the passenger data, conceded he too "probably would have said yes" to the government's request had the decision fallen to him.
"We were a different country then," Neeleman told several hundred students gathered for the 13th annual Spencer Fox Eccles Convocation at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business. "We did something that we thought was patriotic."
JetBlue released the information in the summer of 2002, just nine months after terrorists crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York City. At that time, security concerns were paramount in the minds of U.S. airline executives and the country at large, he said.
JetBlue, for example, was the first airline to install bullet-proof cockpit doors on its planes. It also was the first to install surveillance cameras -- not recorders -- that allow cockpit crews to monitor activities in the passenger compartments of its planes.
Now, though, the political pendulum appears to be swinging back away from security concerns and toward ensuring that individual privacy is protected.
"But given the circumstances at the time, I totally understand why the decision was made. And that is why I personally took responsibility," Neeleman said. It also is why the JetBlue security department employee who released the information was not sanctioned or reprimanded for his actions....</font>
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Sep/09302003/business/97175.asp