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Northwest Admits Passing Passenger Data to Gov't

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Sat Jan 17, 2004 at 11:03:50 PM EST
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Northwest Airlines has admitted participating in a clandestine goverment program and providing data on more than 10 million passengers.

Northwest Airlines provided information on millions of passengers for a secret U.S. government air-security project soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, raising more concerns among some privacy advocates about the airlines' use of confidential customer data.

The nation's fourth-largest airline asserted in September that it "did not provide that type of information to anyone." But Northwest acknowledged Friday that by that time, it had already turned over three months of reservation data to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center. Northwest is the second carrier to have been identified as secretly passing travelers' records to the government.

The airline industry has said publicly that it would not cooperate in developing a government passenger-screening program because of concerns that the project would infringe on customer privacy. But the participation of two airlines in separate programs demonstrates the industry's clandestine role in government security initiatives.

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