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US Politics

US Politics

Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS

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79% Informative

Documents obtained by 404 Media show Customs and Border Protection purchased data from a data broker owned by at least eight major US airlines.

CBP says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest’s air travel across the country.

Documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation , tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from.

The documents are redacted but briefly mention CBP ’s OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility , which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees.

CBP says the data is only used when an OPR investigation is open, and the agency needs to locate someone related to that investigation.

ICE published details about its own ARC data purchase on May 1 , followed by 404 Media.