Briefs

Wired News (12/12/03); Singel, Ryan

The launch of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) has been postponed as industry and federal agencies take a closer look at the project, which is designed to profile air travelers and determine if they may be criminals based on information they are required to provide. A computer checks such information against consumer databases and watch lists of suspected terrorists and known criminals, but members of Congress, General Accounting Office (GAO) researchers, air travel industry organizations, and even the European Union have voiced concerns over CAPPS II. Congress recently barred CAPPS II from implementation until the GAO submits a report due in mid-February covering the program's effectiveness and privacy implications.

The European Union has said that European airlines could be forced to break EU law because the United States mandates that airlines flying in from overseas must supply full access to their traveler database. Negotiations are underway between the EU's Data Protection Working Party, the U.S. Homeland Security Department, and the State Department to scale back the number of data elements airlines must disclose, guarantee the establishment of an independent privacy-protection office, and ensure that the data is used expressly for anti-terrorism purposes. The Air Transport Association also raised issues with the Transportation Security Administration over CAPPS II's financial ramifications: If the system discourages people from flying, it could damage an airline industry that is already in dire straits, while the cost of overhauling reservation databases to accommodate more information and gather missing data at check-in would run in the tens of millions of dollars. The government originally planned to deploy CAPPS II earlier this year, but the delay could push the initial rollout to 2004, with full rollout in the following year.

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