Edwad Hasbrouck mentions something that might have an impact at work: TSA finally starts talking to travel execs about CAPPS-II

These same privacy clauses in travel management contracts were almost certainly violated when airlines (including jetBleu and Northwest), CRS’s (including Sabre), and third-party PNR processing firms (including Airline Automation — now part of the Amadeus CRS — and Acxiom) shared PNR data with government contractors and agencies for profiling tests. As recognition of the issue grows, so does the likelihood that all these companies handling, and secretly disclosing, reservation data will face breach of contract lawsuits from corporate travellers, in addition to the current crop of class action lawsuits by individual passengers.

“PNR” is “Personal Name Record,” and is something I build every time I make a reservation for someone. Our main client (our team is “tied” to just one account) may or may not be one of those whose travel manager went to this meeting. However, I doubt it, they’re hardly ever up to speed on current and future issues in the industry, and also very slow to implement optional updates.

It’s possible this issue might be important to those higher on the food chain than I am; likelier that it’s not, and won’t be an issue for our client. Hard to say.

However, if any of the international travelers I’ve encountered ended up on the “wrong” list under CAPPS-II, there’d be h e l l to pay. One lady went ballistic recently because of a clerical error — her passport was cancelled by mistake by the local Passport Office (Department of State) instead of having extra pages added. NO explanation, no apology, and when they replaced the passport, they sent it offsite by regular mail and back rather than issue it onsite. Why? We don’t know, that’s government work for you.

So — given the high quality of government work in general and knowing a bit about the TSA in particular, I’m not really optimistic about CAPPS-II, and apparently there are a lot of people in the industry who totally oppose it (mostly because it’ll cost a lot of money to implement, but still – it’s dependent on government work, and that’s not good).