An aviation industry clearinghouse is collecting data on air travelers from billions of flights — and selling it to Trump’s immigration enforcers.

A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.

The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.

Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

  • @[email protected]English
    178•7 days ago

    The company is jointly owned by nine major airlines, most of which are US-based: Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Air France.

    I hope EU starts some investigation, because it doesn’t seem this follows the GDPR for European travelers.

      • JohnEdwaEnglish
        28•7 days ago

        Maximum GDPR fine is 4% of your revenue. For Lufthansa, that would be ~$1.4 billion, Air France ~$650 million, both of which are roughly their entire net income for one year.

        Not sure if anyone has been hit with the maximum ever though, as everyone just keeps track of the dollars and not percentage of revenue.

        • Rikudou_SageEnglish
          8•7 days ago

          AFAIK no one has triggered the biggest fines (yet?). Can’t wait for it to happen.

          • @[email protected]English
            4•7 days ago

            I think the biggest one by value is Meta with €1.2b. Although their revenue is in the $150b+ range, so not maxed out.

    • fmstratEnglish
      4•7 days ago

      Assuming the data doesn’t include international departures or arrivals (only their domestic counterparts), would GDPR even apply?

      • @[email protected]English
        3•6 days ago

        I think it applies to eu citizens worldwide for online purposes. You only need to do business in eu with eu clients (seperate terms) for it to apply.

        • fmstratEnglish
          3•6 days ago

          Yea, I guess because they are “selling” vs being compensated for? If the US govt dictates terms to that business under homeland security, GDPR probably wouldn’t matter, but I can only assume since it’s a sale, that’s not the case.