A Washington Post editorial reports on airlines' potential use of collected passenger information for marketing purposes. The Secure Flight program, operating domestically now and internationally by year's end, is aimed at improving travel by collecting additional passenger data to verify identity. But airlines see an opportunity to "maximize the marketing and other commercial value of this government-coerced informational windfall," said one privacy expert, by drawing a fine line between Secure Flight data collection and data gathered for other purposes. However, a database security expert said in addition to the Transportation Security Administration's regulations on passenger data, airlines must also follow federal compliance mandates preventing the sale of passenger data to third parties. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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