American Airlines wants to know everything about you

Another BoingBoing post, but much more serious than conceptual art: if Cory Doctorow’s experience is typical, then it seems American Airlines now expects passengers to provide the names and addresses of everybody they intend to stay with in the USA.

They claimed that this was due to a TSA [Transport Security Administration] regulation, but refused to state which regulation required them to gather this information, nor what they would do with it once they’d gathered it.

… I asked for the name or number of the regulation, its text, and the details of the data-retention and privacy practices in place at AA UK. The security officer wasn’t able to answer my questions, and she went to get her supervisor.

After several minutes, her supervisor appeared and said, after introducing himself, “Sir, this is for your own protection.”


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