JetBlue narcs on it’s passengers

Posted on September 24, 2003
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JetBlue is, hands down, my favourite airline in terms of passenger service, cost, and comfort. Unfortunately they’re also first in selling out their customers to the Orwellian surveillance machine that is being built in the US:

A presentation prepared by contractor, Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala., describes how it merged the JetBlue database with U.S. Social Security numbers, home addresses, income levels and vehicle ownership information it purchased from Acxiom, a company that sells consumer data. Not all the details are clear, but the presentation discusses how Torch, on behalf of Uncle Sam, tried to rate each passenger’s security risk level by analyzing the merged databases. - JetBlue privacy–under federal wings?

JetBlue wasn’t handed a subpoena, there was no search warrant. They were asked and they complied. But this really isn’t all that surprising. It’s not in the interests of any big business to protect the privacy of it’s customers; it’s not in their interest to think of customers as people at all. It is in their interest to keep those who can shut them down and shut them out very happy. eBay knows this all too well:

One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user’s full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. - Big Brother is watching you - and documenting

In addition eBay will provide the following transaction information:

Bidding History on an Item, Other Items for Sale, Feedback about a user, Bidding history of a user, Prices paid for items, Feedback rating, and Chat Room/Bulletin Board (!). - eBay to Law Enforcement - We’re Here to Help

Not content within being a lapdog, eBay actually volunteers to sell out their users:

Sullivan says the company employs six investigators, all of whom have experience in police investigations. Their job is “to track down suspicious people and suspicious behavior.” To that end, they scan for patterns that are atypical - different from “normal patterns.” For example, if a person sold baseball tickets for two months and suddenly switches to selling a car, the eBay system will “wave a red flag” and signal the seller as someone behaving unusually. Who asks eBay to do it? No one. eBay volunteers

In other words: eBay is the bitch of law enforcement (and park rangers too? weird), more than happy to roll over at the drop of a fax.

Everything you do that intersects big business is stored in someone’s database somewhere. It’s trivial to combine and mine these sources of information. Indignance that big business is selling you out is like being indignant that raindrops make you wet: it’s what they do. It is, quite simply, the system we’ve built.

They know we’ll be up in arms for a few days until Ben and JLo announce their marriage plans again and then we’ll forget. And then we’ll need to fly and a nagging thought will be there: “JetBlue… didn’t they…?” but they’ll have the right price and we’ll fly anyway and that tidbit will be added back into the database.

I don’t think the solution is to attack these companies, I can’t see that helping. Instead, tackle it at the root level. You don’t like eBay’s policy? Don’t use them. Don’t like JetBlue tying your itinerary to you? Work to repeal rules that stipulate you must show a Social Insurance number and valid ID before boarding a flight. There’s no reason a domestic airline needs to know that the Me in seat 3B is actually me - Greyhound doesn’t care, the guy driving the cab I took last night doesn’t care, what’s so special about the airline? Nothing.

Businesses can’t be stopped from collecting data and they’ll happily abuse all the data they collect. If you don’t like this then prevent them from getting the data in the first place.

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