TSA Asked to Ensure Safety Of Customer Data After Clear Closing

CWmike writes "The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), has given the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) until July 8 to explain how the agency plans to ensure the security of private data collected by a recently shuttered company that offered a registered traveler program. In a letter to the TSA's acting assistant secretary, Thompson expressed his concern over the abrupt closure of Verified Identity Pass (VIP), which offered a service called Clear for a $199 annual fee that helped air travelers get through airport security checks faster by vetting their identities and backgrounds in advance. VIP has left open the possibility that the data could end up being acquired or sold to a third-party, but only if it was going to be used for a registered traveler program."

Comments

Registered Terrorist^wTraveller Program

[BlackSabbath]

According to the Computerworld article:

"They had your social security information, credit information, where you lived, employment history, fingerprint information," said Clear customer David Maynor, who is chief technical officer with Errata Security in Atlanta. "They should be the only ones who have access to that information."

and

"Other providers, who may now be interested in purchasing Clear's assets, include Flo and Preferred Traveler. "

Given the capability by companies to effectively hide their interested principals through convoluted international structures I wonder how hard it would be for a front-company to buy this info on behalf of criminal organisations, terrorist groups or other nation states.

Re:Registered Terrorist^wTraveller Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, if it really HAD been an "official" government thing rather than a for-profit company, they couldn't have gone bankrupt in the first place... so about the only lesson that could be drawn there is that the free market is the wrong approach here.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[Kijori]

Rather brilliantly, by having this card you didn't reduce the security checks at the airport - you just got to skip to the front of the queue. This does mean that security wasn't compromised in the slightest - but it also raises the question of why the company kept doing expensive background checks that served no purpose since the card didn't get you through security!

Convenient air travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Is only going to cost an extra $199 annually? Wow, I hope banks don't catch onto any of this. Otherwise it will be nothing but "You may present a potential security risk so before you can deposit that check we will need to either strip search you, OR you can just pay us 200 dollars."

I am more bothered by the fact we need them

[Shivetya]

and that the TSA cannot do this BY NOW.

Let alone the whole fact that the TSA is yet another example of government sanctioned Political Connectedness run amok. My mom finally had a flight; she flies a few times a years; where she didn't get stopped. What makes her stand out? Oh, I dunno, but age sixty plus white women with small dogs are apparently a threat to US security. They don't even seem to notice her bag with needles for her insulin, or the pump attached to her. Yeah, last time she traveled she didn't have the dog.

Throw in the stories about how the TSA cannot profile and then how do we expect to have "security". You get it by profiling. Sorry, but when the next plane gets 'jacked all that political connectedness will have done what? Gotten more people killed.

Besides, the next method will be to shoot one down that is taking off. That will make 9/11's flight scares look benign.

So now we need private companies because the efficiency of a union staffed government agency is below par. What part of DUH don't people understand. Yet so many here want to turn over their health care to these same goons who can't even get you to your plane on time. Where is the proper sense of priorities here?

Re:I am more bothered by the fact we need them

[mcgrew]

so many here want to turn over their health care to these same goons who can't even get you to your plane on time

Incompetence, like competence, starts ate the top. The reason that it took five days to get water to the Superdome (and why the TSA is such a clusterfuck) is because the people at the top were unqualified for the jobs they were appointed to because the President was incompetent at his job as well.

To counter your example, in March 12, 2006 my town was hit by two F-2 tornados. The devastation was so bad that if Osama Bin Laden had seen it, he'd have given up, knowing he couldn't possibly hurt us.

There wasn't a utility pole standing in my neighborhood the next day. Our city-owned electrical utility (we have the lowest electric rates and the most reliable power in the state) had the infrastructure repaired and everyone online in a week.

Later that year an F-1 hit the St Louis area; I visited a friend in Cahokia that weekend and it was NOTHING like the destruction in my neighborhood. But it took the Amerin corporation a month to get his (very expensive) power back on. Yet so many here want to keep their health care in the hands of these same goons who can't even keep your lights on in a storm.

Re:I am more bothered by the fact we need them

[0xdeadbeef]

You get it by profiling.

Damn straight. Every terrorist who has attacked America has been either a Muslim, a Christian, or right-wing kook. The pattern is obvious: conservative religious people are a threat to our very way of life. But when we recognize that threat, their powerful lobby and traitorous friends in the mainstream media kick in and start singing the political correctness whine.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[nihaopaul]

i have to agree, safety is the least of their concern, much more work is done to get into a chinese datacenter unescorted than to pass security at the airports, but this is world wide not just America. security at the airports is for show, many times i've forgotten to empty my bag before flying and found out i've got a multipurpose screwdriver set and once i forgot to take my dive knife out of my carry on. and went through 2 international and one domestic airport.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[maxume]

If the card customers are bearing the full cost of the additional lines, is it really a bribe?

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[TheRaven64]

I fly a couple times a week and can assure you that the hassle is not designed to keep you safer.

Actually, it is. Various studies have shown that people under stress are likely to panic when they are hassled or surprised, and make mistakes. If you are about to blow up a plane, you are under a lot of stress and the kind of thing that is slightly irritating for the rest of us is a major psychological problem.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[mcgrew]

Of course it is, but it's a legal bribe, like donating to both major candidates running for the same office is. Some bribes are legal, but they're still bribes.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[mcgrew]

The USAF used to be pretty good a security (but I'm talking early '70s here). Once when I was on light duty because of an injury, they loaned me to the SPs (USAF equivalent to MPs) to test flightline security. They held my security badge and had me try to get in the cockpit of a C5-A holding a cardboard box. It was actually skewed in my favor, because my job was normally on the flightline hauling AGE equipment.

I did actually get in once, I think somebody got in trouble over that. After the test the flightline people were a lot more observant.

Re:Pay for Security w/o as much Hassle?

[shermo]

You got in once. That's all it takes. How is that 'pretty good' at security?

Really it is mindboggling the odds stacked against security systems, so it's no wonder they create such elaborate and ultimately futile systems.