Passenger screening system may not be ready by August

Delays in developing key elements of the computerized system for prescreening airline passengers make it unclear if the system will be ready by its slated August deployment date, according to the Government Accountability Office. The watchdog agency also said it is uncertain whether privacy protections for the Secure Flight system will be met.

In a congressionally mandated report (GAO-05-356) released Monday, GAO found Secure Flight has failed to meet nine of the 10 criteria outlined by Congress, including oversight, security safeguards, accuracy of data, cost to airlines, privacy protections and a system of redress for passengers who are incorrectly targeted by the system.

"It is quite clear what the GAO is reporting here is that Secure Flight is not ready for takeoff and should be held at the gate," said Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union. "If the GAO were handing out a grade, it would have to be an incomplete."

While GAO reported that the Transportation Security Administration is making progress at addressing key areas, "initial tests have only been completed, and key policy decisions -- including what data will be collected and how it will be transmitted -- have not been made."

In reviewing the report, it is important to note that "it is being issued in the eighth month of a 14-month planning development testing and implementation cycle," said a TSA spokeswoman. TSA "generally concurs with the report," she said, adding that the hardware and information technology infrastructure is largely functional, and dates for commercial data and effectiveness testing are on schedule.

GAO said the key decisions the draft program lacks include what information will be needed from passenger airline reservations to best match data to government databases of suspected terrorists. While some testing has been conducted to identify what elements will be used to match data, additional testing must be completed, the agency said.

"Although TSA is conducting accuracy of matching, the system's effectiveness to identify passengers who should undergo enhanced scrutiny has not been determined," GAO said.

Early results indicate that TSA may ask air carriers to collect birthdates from passengers. Results show it would greatly improve the ability to match to the watch list, the TSA spokeswoman said. Furthermore, TSA "is considering whether commercial data ... maintained by private companies could enhance the system's ability to match the data." Access to such data would increase the operation costs of the system, according to the report.

The viability of the system hinges on the ability of TSA to communicate with airline reservation systems, the report said. GAO found that there is not a process in place to connect those systems with TSA and the terrorist-screening database. Airline carriers also expressed concern over the unknown costs of establishing links to transfer data and update reservations systems to include new data.

To address concerns about identity theft from the system, TSA said in the report that biometric technologies such as facial recognition, iris scans, hand geometry and fingerprint recognition might be the best tools.

Sparapani said the report does not address how passengers would determine if they are wrongly detained or put on terrorist watch lists, or how they would get their names off such lists. "There is a presumption of guilt," he said.