[IRR] Army: JetBlue Data Use Was Legal

[Eugen Leitl]

Army: JetBlue Data Use Was Legal

By Ryan Singel
02:00 AM Aug. 23, 2004 PT

An Army data-mining project that searched through JetBlue's passenger
records and sensitive personal information from a data broker to
pinpoint possible terrorists did not violate federal privacy law,
according to an investigation by the Army's inspector general.

The inspector general's findings (PDF) were accepted by some, but
critics say the report simply highlights the inability of the
country's privacy laws to cope with 21st-century anti-terrorism
efforts.

News of the Army project came to light in September 2003 when JetBlue
admitted it had violated its privacy policy by turning over 5.1
million passenger records to Torch Concepts , an Alabama-based
defense contractor.

Torch subsequently enhanced the JetBlue data with information about
passengers' salaries, family size and Social Security numbers that it
purchased from Acxiom , one of the country's largest data aggregators.

The Army says it was testing the data-mining technology as part of a
plan to screen visitors to Army bases.

...


http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64647,00.html

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