WASHINGTON - The government has not adequately addressed security and privacy concerns in its plan to use personal information to rank airline passengers as potential security threats, congressional investigators say.
The Bush administration wants to begin testing a new program this spring and put it in place during the summer. The findings by the General Accounting Office, contained in a draft report obtained yesterday, could delay the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II.
Congress said the government could not spend any money for testing or putting the program in place until the GAO reported that eight specific concerns were satisfied. These include assurances that the system is accurate, that the technology ensures privacy, that safeguards exist to prevent abuse and that passengers who think they were mistakenly identified as a threat have some recourse.
The investigators did not recommend whether the program should go forward but said the Transportation Security Administration has not completely addressed seven of the eight issues. The exception was the creation of an oversight board to monitor the system.
The report said the agency has not yet completed important system planning activities.
The program would screen all passengers by checking information such as name, address and date of birth against commercial and government databases. Each passenger would be given one of three color-coded ratings.
Suspected terrorists and violent criminals would be designated as red and forbidden to fly. Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening. The vast majority would be rated as green and be allowed to go through routine screening.
Privacy advocates say the program infringes on civil liberties and might label innocent people as security threats.
The report said privacy concerns remained unresolved in part because the system's development was delayed. One reason for that is airlines do not want to turn over information about passengers until the carriers are sure privacy and security concerns are addressed.
Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said recently that the program is such a priority that the government will compel airlines to share passenger information. He said he was confident that privacy concerns can be resolved.
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