Has anyone ever looked at your face and mistaken you for someone else? If so, and if you live in California, you could be a victim of a proposal by the California Department of Motor Vehicles which is now under consideration in the state legislature. At a hearing yesterday (May 13, 2009) before the Assembly […]
The Council of the European Union has put forward its new version of the “Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) for law enforcement purposes” originally made by the European Commission. (More background on the proposal is available from Statewatch.) The latest Council version of the proposal is […]
Amendments to the ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures – Passenger (AIRIMP) take effect today, providing the first industry standard formats that airlines, travel agencies, and computerized reservation systems (CRSs) can use to transmit the additional information about travelers and prospective travelers newly required by the TSA for its Secure Flight airline passenger “screening” (surveillance and […]
The Identity Project participates actively in U.S., Canadian, European Union, ICAO, and other international regulatory and policy development proceedings through policy analysis, research, written comments, white papers, and testimony on proposed rules and regulatory notices. We monitor ID-related regulatory filings in the Federal Register and E.U. notices, but we also welcome your tips on upcoming […]
Once again as before trying to legislate by press release and blog posting, the TSA has asserted that it has the general law-enforcement authority to detain would-be airline passengers, seize their possessions, and compel them to answer questions — for reasons entirely unrelated to aviation or security, and even when it cannot articulate any probable […]
Chris Strohm of the National Journal’s CongressDaily reports: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, said Monday that her office is participating in a working group established by the National Governors Association to review the so-called Real ID law, which Congress passed in 2005 while under Republican control. “What they’re looking at […]
Demands for ID credentials from hotel guests are once again in the public eye, with commenters in travel journalist Christopher Elliott’s blog weighing in with opinions on his recent article about an Orlando hotel, Hotel shows customer the door after he refuses to show ID — can it do that? This sort of thing doesn’t […]
(Comments of the Identity Project at a workshop on “What’s on the agenda in the USA and Canada?” at the annual conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection, Brussels, 16-17 January 2009) Two major issues have emerged in the last year in relation to personal data about travel: (1) The overall goal of the government […]
Continuing its “lame-duck” promulgation of rulings that will tie the hands of the new Presidential administration — or at least delay any efforts to reform DHS rules by requiring a new rulemaking process, or legislation, before they can be withdrawn — the DHS has published two new rules that will extend requirements for individualized pre-departure […]
Over the weekend Stewart Baker of the DHS posted an entry in the DHS “Leadership Journal” blog entitled U.S. and EU Agree on Data Protection Principles. Readers unfamiliar with the “back story” might conclude from this — as Baker and the DHS no doubt hope they will — that some sort of formal negotiations have […]