March 28, 2005 | Another Day, Another Report

The Government Accountability Office today released its second report on whether the TSA's efforts to replace the current airline passenger screening system are effective and respect the public's privacy.

As Congress has mandated the GAO certifies the program (now known as Secure Flight) before it can be rolled out, this report calls into question whether the system can be put in place at two airlines (reportedly Delta and JetBlue) in mid-August, as recently announced by Homeland Security's new chief, Michael Chertoff.

Here's what the report had to say:

TSA is making progress in addressing each of the key areas of congressional interest related to the development and implementation of Secure Flight, including developing and testing the system. However, TSA has not yet completed these efforts or fully addressed these areas, due largely to the current stage of the system’s development. For example, while TSA has drafted a concept of operations and system requirements, it has not finalized these key documents or completed test activities that will need to be accomplished before Secure Flight becomes operational. Until requirements are defined, operating policies are finalized, and testing is completed— scheduled for later in the system’s development—we cannot determine whether Secure Flight will fully address these areas of interest.

TSA also initiated a number of actions designed to improve the ability of Secure Flight to identify passengers who should undergo additional security scrutiny, in place of the prescreening currently conducted by air carriers. Specifically, TSA officials stated that recently completed initial testing identified improvements over the current prescreening system, and TSA plans to use intelligence analysts to increase the accuracy of data matches. However, the effectiveness of Secure Flight in identifying passengers who should undergo additional security scrutiny has not been fully determined. For example, TSA has not resolved how passenger data will be transmitted from air carriers to TSA to support Secure Flight operations. Further, the ability of Secure Flight to make accurate matches between passenger data and data contained in the terrorist screening database is dependent on the quality of the data used, which has not been determined.

TSA has also strengthened the oversight and management of Secure Flight, and has established relationships with key program stakeholders. However, air carriers expressed concerns regarding the uncertainty of system requirements, and the impact these requirements may have on the airline industry in terms of system modifications and costs. Additionally, TSA has taken steps to minimize potential impacts on passengers and to protect passenger rights during Secure Flight testing. However, TSA has not yet clearly defined the privacy impacts of the operational system or all of the actions TSA plans to take to mitigate potential impacts.

Full report here (.pdf), highlights here (.pdf).

Posted by Ryan Singel at March 28, 2005 09:32 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.secondaryscreening.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/144

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Another Day, Another Report:

» Auditors question TSA use of airline reservations from The Practical Nomad
Two reports by different sets of internal USA government auditors have questioned the appropriateness and legality, and revealed more details, about past, present, and proposed uses by the USA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of airline res... [Read More]

Tracked on March 29, 2005 04:31 PM