The U.S. airline industry quietly backed a data broker that for years sold passenger travel records to multiple government agencies. Now, after public reporting and congressional pressure, that program will be shut down.
ARC Will Shut Down Troubling Program That Sold Passenger Flight Records To U.S. Government
Earlier this year I wrote about how Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) was selling detailed travel data to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agencies. ARC is the central clearinghouse that settles tickets issued by most U.S. travel agencies. When you booked through many online or brick and mortar agencies, your ticket data flowed into ARC for settlement and reporting.
> Read More: Airlines Sold Passenger Data To Border Patrol, Then Tried To Hide It
Under a product called the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP), ARC aggregated billions of ticket records and then sold access to that database. Government customers could run queries by name, route, date, form of payment, or other identifiers and see both past and future itineraries. This was not limited to international flights. Domestic travel sold through agencies could also end up in the system. Interestingly, as One Mile At A Time noted, this data did not include flights booked directly with the airline.
Documents later obtained by journalists showed that agencies including CBP, ICE, the IRS and others used ARC’s data without obtaining warrants or going through a court process. One contract reportedly even discouraged CBP from disclosing that ARC was the source of the data. None of this was disclosed in any meaningful way to passengers.
ARC Will Shut Down The Travel Intelligence Program
Now there is an update. According to a letter sent to members of Congress and reporting by 404 Media, ARC has decided to shutter the Travel Intelligence Program. ARC’s chief executive wrote that TIP is “no longer aligned with ARC’s core goals of serving the travel industry” and stated that the product will be sunset by the end of 2025.
Practically speaking, that means:
- ARC has informed government clients that the Travel Intelligence Program will be discontinued.
- No new contracts will be signed and existing access will wind down over the coming months.
- The specific product that allowed broad, warrantless queries of aggregated ticket data will no longer operate once the wind down is complete.
ARC has tried to frame this as an internal business decision, but it comes after increased scrutiny from privacy advocates, journalists, and lawmakers who questioned whether such a program should exist at all.
My View Has Not Changed
When I first wrote about this issue, I found the program deeply troubling. Most passengers had no idea that by using a travel agency they were feeding their itinerary and payment details into a commercial database that the government could search without a warrant. There is a world of difference between an airline responding to a specific, legally valid request for information and a standing arrangement in which a broker sells bulk access to everyone’s travel history.
I am glad ARC is shutting TIP down. That is the right outcome. At the same time, the fact that this product was built, marketed, and used for years raises bigger questions about how our travel data is handled. I think most of us have acquiesced to the reality that there is no privacy in this world, but that doesn’t mean we must go along with programs like TIP.
What other commercial tools exist that we simply have not heard about yet? How many ways are there for agencies to piece together a travel profile without going through normal judicial channels? And how many of us would have chosen a different booking path if we understood how our data was being packaged and sold?
CONCLUSION
ARC’s decision to end the Travel Intelligence Program is a welcome development for travelers who care about privacy and transparency. A system that allowed multiple government agencies to query detailed passenger records without a warrant never should have existed in the first place. The shutdown is progress, but it should also be a reminder to ask a simple question every time we travel (or buy anything, for that matter): who is collecting my data, and what else are they doing with it?
Good riddance.
PS: When a scandal-ridden thing goes away at a very convenient time and the company says it was an “internal business decision”, that’s a euphemism for “you busted us, can we please just make this whole thing go away”?
They have committed to shutting down TIP — but look at how narrowly drawn the language is. They have not committed to shutting down and never reviving programs that sell traveler data to third parties.
For all we know, they have already launched a replacement product, under a different name.
Fair point…and would not surprise me!
Boom! Correctomundo!
No agency should need this. If someone is committing an actual crime, getting a warrant to demand any of this information shouldn’t be too hard. The problem is that a subset of the population truly doesn’t care about due process when it’s stripped away from people they don’t like. Somewhat ironically, I would suspect some of the largest supporters of this information being shared were some of the greatest critics of the Patriot Act back when it was first passed.
Well said, Matt. As part of the cohort of “travelers who care about privacy and transparency,” I agree. This is a rare example of bipartisanship; both progressives (concerned about civil liberties and the targeting of minorities/immigrants) and conservatives (concerned about government overreach and Fourth Amendment violations) agreed that government agencies like the IRS, ICE, and FBI should not be able to buy Americans’ travel records without a warrant. Really tired of data broker loopholes. Well done to 404 Media, too, for pushing this issue.
By the way, the lady in the photo used in this article looks very attractive and classy.