A major new screening programme for all travellers visiting and leaving the USA was introduced this week.
The Automated Targeting System (ATS) was set up by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The ATS screens all data travellers are required to provide for the DHS and gives them a "risk assessment." The scheme allows the DHS to decide if a "passenger or crew member should receive additional screening prior to entry into or departure from the country because the traveller may pose a greater risk for violation of US law."
The system initially began years ago to assess the risk of cargoes but it has emerged that the US government has been secretly using it to assess passengers for four years.
The DHS said that ATS did not allow it to collect any further information on passengers than it already does.
Currently, passengers arriving on flights from outside the US are required to provide extensive info with their Passenger Name Record (PNR.).
This itself was the subject of substantial misgivings by the European Parliament which regarded such requests for such information as an invasion of privacy.
The Parliament was unaware of the secret ATS scheme when it made its remarks.
ATS has been heavily criticised by various US bodies including the Business Travel Coalition (BTC), The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, the National Business Travel Association, the US Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The BTC said that "ATS represents a historically unparalleled, massive data-mining initiative the parameters of which:
(a) allow for the collection of all manner of personal information on innocent citizens without their prior consent;
(b) forbid citizens from accessing and correcting inaccuracies in their personal government dossiers;
(c) provide for the sharing of such information with foreign governments and third parties;
(d) retain individuals' information for 40 years."
The EEF asked the DHS to delay the porgramme''s roll out "until it makes more details available to the public and addresses critical privacy and due process concerns."
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