hserus

.. apparently by looking at his frequent flyer records. Lesson for investigative journalists - if you spy on an airline, and meet on board its flights / at its lounges, consider using another airline from another alliance for that kind of stuff

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...558312,00.html

Germany's flag airline carrier has admitted it spied on a journalist for a major financial daily in order to identify the source of leaks from Lufthansa's company board.

[...]

In order to solidify evidence that a member of its control board had contact with the journalist, the company examined the frequent flyer's passenger data. The company had identified him in the mid-1990s after, as a journalist for the business magazine Capital and later for the FTD, he repeatedly reported on confidential board information.

[...]

The journalist became suspicious to the company because of a flight from Düsseldorg to Hamburg where he met with his informant, a longtime workers' representative at the company. Because the two had little time to meet, they held their meeting in the airline's lounge at the Hamburg Airport. The controller, who was apparently already suspected by the company as being the source of leaks to FTD was recognized by a coworker. In order to identify the journalist he had spoken to, company workers checked flight data and quickly found him. The sensitive information can be pulled up in an internal computer system called "Corona," where passenger data is stored for up to one year.

[.......]

tcswede

It seems to be an onging issue in Germany currently with several companies in the press. IMHO interestingly the finger is always pointed solely at the companies and the reason why such action was taken is "ignored"

Interestingly whether Telekom or LH - members of the supervisory board were being caught by these measures - as they felt a need to share conficential company materials with journalists. Adding to this it seems that the members having this urge were labour representatives on the upervisory board aka unions and as it seems theses functions stand above the laws and rules that everybody else should / has to adhere to.

If these chaps would have a less urge to pill beans they should not - the measures by the companies would have needed.

Certainly having a go with incorrect behaviour at something that was not correct in the first instance is not a solution - but it is disappointing to see how onesided the reports are....

Cheers

Thomas

hserus

which is why I used "spies" in quotes. Its fairly complex - the line between investigative reporters, whistleblowers and plain old sneaks can be blurred at times. For example - what was the confidential information being shared, evidence LH was doing something illegal? Or something like news of confidential business deals?

DLSTR

Agree 100%

Grog

.....

weero

So they CAN actually access these records .

This is not the answer we get when we have an issue with our account .

Maybe the issue was so important to them that LH had its folks descent into the basement and get the boxes with the old punch cards out and fed them through the reader ...

Rambuster

If LH refuses to credit a flight to your account, you can now always ask Deutsche Telekom to provide your mobile phone locations details before and after the alleged flight !

Kiwi Flyer

Perhaps a new reason to make a call while boarding and another when disembarking?

Rambuster

I am sure the US government will soon ask for phone logs to be part of the APIS information once they learn that the info is readily available with Deutsche Telekom!

flamboyant 1

KiwiFlyer & Rambuster - hilarious and yet almost true ;-). Thanks for this.

weero

With all due respect - I think you confuse the evil intentions and the criminal energy of these companies and the government bodies with their capabilities.

I bear not doubt that the airlines have no real remorse of collecting and exploiting whatever details they can spy out on their customers. But that lack of respect for privacy doesn't render them capable to store, maintain, and retrieve any accurate data or details of their customers.
Only in Hollywood, 'evil' comes with state of the art technology .

Triple3

Just because LH does not make use of your movement profile to actually help or support you it does not mean that LH ain't using it to support LH's profit.

Rambuster

If LH can use my movement data to support their profit, could they then please share it with me, so I can figure out of how to make a profit on my own movement ?

Triple3

You mean you're not making profit on your move? So why do you move?