Every airline passenger entering the United States from next week will be secretly assigned a computer-generated terror threat score, based on information as diverse as their car number-plate and the meal ordered on a flight.
The rating — which will be used to subject people to extra security checks or even arrest — cannot be seen or challenged and will be held on file for 40 years.
The scores, which can be shared with state and local police, foreign governments, courts and potential government employers, are assigned to people after computers assess factors including their travel records, where they are from, how they paid for their tickets, their car records, their seating preference, past one-way travel and what meal they ordered.
Privacy groups called the system invasive and expressed alarm that hundreds of millions of Americans and international travellers will not be allowed to know their score, even if it is erroneous, or to challenge it.
The programme, called the Automated Targeting System (ATS), was disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security. It described it as “one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world”. The department said that the system was aimed at discovering high-risk individuals who “may have not been previously associated with a law enforcement action or otherwise be noted as a person of concern to law enforcement.”
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An official at the department said that America’s ability to spot security threats “would be critically impaired without access to this data”. More than 87 million people a year enter America by air, and 309 million enter by land or sea, according to the US Government. Federal officials receive advanced passenger and crew lists for all flights and ships entering and leaving the US, and those details are already entered into the ATS system.
The names of vehicle drivers and passengers are entered when they cross the border, and Amtrak — the national rail operator — is voluntarily supplying passenger details for trains to and from Canada.
According to a notice posted by the Department of Homeland Security, the ATS system has been exempted from many provisions of the Privacy Act that are designed to protect people from secret and possibly inaccurate government dossiers.
As a result, the department said, travellers cannot learn how the system has rated them, nor can they see the records “for the purpose of contesting the content”. The statement added: “An individual might not be aware of the reason why additional scrutiny is taking place, nor should he.”
A similar Homeland Security project for domestic air travellers, called Secure Flight, has been blocked by Congress until the Government can prove that the system can pass ten tests for accuracy and privacy protection.
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David Sobel, of the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the US Government “is preparing to give millions of law-abiding citizens risk assessment scores that will follow them throughout their lives”.
He added: “If that wasn’t frightening enough, none of us will have the ability to know our score or to challenge it.”
The department said that passengers could complain to the Custom and Border Protection’s customer satisfaction unit. They can obtain corrections “when the data from the source system is amended”, although it was not explained how an informed complaint could be made when the threat score was kept secret.
Hundreds of Americans have had problems in being misidentified persistently as terror suspects because their names match those on anti-terror watch lists.
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