After much discussion of the new TSA “Secure Flight” program, Continental Airlines announced as of last Friday that it will be the first domestic airline to implement the program. On all new reservations, the airline will now require travelers to provide their full names as they appear on their government issued ID, their date of birth, and their gender, at time of booking.
Continental is bypassing potential frequent flier issues, by not requiring the name to match the traveler’s Onepass frequent flier account. And in fact, the name will not even have to match the exact name on the ticket. But it will be entered as supplemental information. For travel agents, this will be in an SSR (Special Service Request, yet another example of industry jargon.)
No word yet what Continental will do if the agent enters the information incorrectly. Or if the reservations systems travel agents use don’t transmit it in the format the airline has requested. As a California agent, I have not booked Continental under the new system yet, nor has our Galileo GDS system sent us instructions. Apparently the information can also be called in by phone, or given by the traveler to the airline directly, should they not want to share the data with their agent or travel arranger.
Other than it being one more time-consuming thing to do with a reservation, the new practice does bring up more than a few questions. (And yes, in California, especially the San Francisco area, one wonders what the airline’s response will be with a transgender individual.)
The most serious question that comes to mind, however, is a security issue. While most travelers are careful with their credit cards, date of birth is an important piece of information as well for potential identity thieves, especially when combined with other information. Though my sense is that people who would not send their credit card in an email might be more likely to casually email their birthdate.
And since I can imagine that most people won’t want to give the information for every trip, agents may have to store the data in computer profiles. Where currently the only security “masking” is for credit cards.
Clearly, this is all a work in progress. And while I am not especially nervous about computer security, as the new rules expand to other airlines, Murphy’s Law is almost certainly lurking out there somewhere.
In the meantime, travelers who have lied about their real middle (or first) name, or age to their administrative assistants, coworkers, travel arrangers, and agents, be prepared: The truth may not set you free, but it will now be necessary to keep you on your flight.
(Photo: Ivan Makarov/Flickr Creative Commons)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll say it: I don’t want any airline or travel agent to record my date of birth. I don’t mind flashing my passport or driver’s license to a ’security official’ or ‘gate agent’, but no storing of the information is needed.
If I want to sign up for a special program whereby my information is vetted, that’s a different story; but to fly on a plane, why should I have to give any airline my date of birth? More security smoke and mirrors.
Ok, again, where are the comments? I posted one & then a ‘where’s my comment’ question & I still see no comments. I wonder if this one will post.
Was just reading an article by a PILOT who said:
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2009/08/28/askthepilot332/index.html
Are passengers safe from terrorists?
The TSA wastes a lot of time and money on an inefficient fight against the wrong enemy
I’m going to ask again the obvious question that I guarantee the Homeland Security people will never answer: Have the various agencies that maintain the watchlists updated all the million-odd names to include full legal name, gender, and birth date? If not, how will “Secure Flight” either improve the effectivness of the watchlists or improve security?
I booked a November trip on Alaska Airlines yesterday and had to provide the Secure Flight info, so I wonder if Continental was really the first.
Interestingly, I work for the U.S. Government, which is spending millions (if not billions) of dollars complying with a Bush-era order to standardize employee IDs (“Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12″). Nevertheless my new, RFID-chipped photo ID does not comply with the Secure Flight requirements because it lacks my complete middle name. As usual, the left and right hands of the federal government are clapping to different tunes.
We’ve been told to use other government-issued IDs to fly, and the list of approved IDs includes DoD dependant IDs. I am a retired Marine’s dependant, but my DoD-issued ID does not indicate my gender. So, again, the federal government is confused about which of the IDs the government itself has issued comply with the government’s TSA requirements.
I don’t feel any safer (not that I feel endangered given what I understand about flying safety) but as a taxpayer I feel poorer, and as someone who believes in the Bill of Rights I feel less secure in my personal privacy than I did before the government put all my personal and biometric data (apart from my full middle name!) on an easily-scannable RFID chip.
Delta has been doing this since August 15th and it has caused numerous issues with frequent flyers getting credit and no one has been stopped or delayed at the TSA security check points when the information hasn’t been added.
If you go to the TSA website, it says that this program is voluntary and that passengers can opt out of it. It then goes on to say that by doing so, passengers will be subjected to secondary screening and possibly be denied access to secure areas, which includes the gates and thus the aircraft.
and check this from The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2009/09/security_theatre_update.cfm?Fsrc=glvrnwl
What I still do not understand is why is this information (full name, birth date, and gender) important? Who cares who is flying? Is it not more important to know WHAT is flying? As the article that Frank linked to stated, we can’t bring a butter knife on board, yet we could bring plastic explosives on board. How is knowing our names going to help? And what would stop a terrorist from changing their name to “John Smith” and making up a birth date so they are not “caught” when trying to buy or use an airline ticket?
And to echo Bruce Schneier (I believe he said it first), what on Earth can someone do that would prevent them from flying but not dastardly enough to have them arrested?
The TSA has gone overboard and needs to be re-evaluated. I think the airlines need to be in line for a smacking since they wanted names attached to airline tickets so that passengers who could not fly were not able to sell or give their tickets to someone who could fly (hey, I paid for the ticket so why can I not sell it to my neighbor if I can not fly? Oh, that’s right–so the airlines can make money from my unused ticket and the ticket my neighbor has to buy–is this not a sign of outrageous greed???).