{"id":253,"date":"2009-11-23T17:26:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T01:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skyeome.net\/wordpress\/?p=253"},"modified":"2010-06-21T08:14:13","modified_gmt":"2010-06-21T16:14:13","slug":"new-years-entity-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skyeome.net\/wordpress\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"New years entity resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Just in case you think that entity resolution problems (matching up names appearing in multiple data sources, while not falsely assuming that everyone named “John Smith” is the same person) are purely an academic concern, I recently got an email from an airline announcing TSA’s new Secure Flight program<\/a> and asking me to provide them with birth date and gender information when making a reservation:
\n<\/p>\n

How Does Secure Flight Make Travel Better for Me?<\/strong>
\nThe TSA determined that making date of birth and gender mandatory data elements would greatly reduce the number of passengers misidentified as a match to the watch list when fully implemented. It is to your advantage to provide the above information to potentially prevent delays or inconveniences at the airport, especially for those individuals who have similar names to those on the
\nwatch lists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yup, we could have told them that. Matching names correctly is hard problem. There are lots of false positives. It helps a lot if you can have additional context information in a standardize form for each name to disambiguate the names. And eventually you probably need to create some sort of ID system to use to group the names, aliases, and context info in the database in order to separate the people who have the same name. Oh wait:<\/p>\n

\nThe TSA-assigned Redress Number is assigned to Customers who believe they have been mistakenly matched to a name on the watch list to prevent misidentification. Customers who have previously contacted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and received a redress letter will should soon receive a new letter from DHS that will include the Redress Number for you to enter into your account. The control number is not the same as a Redress Number.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ok. I guess that is a step forward. At least they are finally admitting that there can be problems with this kind of data match system, and have provided a way to get “unmatched”. But it is an interesting “prove you are not a terrorist” precedent. The TSA site also states the program is designed to move the matching process away from the airlines (so they won’t have the no-fly lists) and centralize the matching in a consistent TSA system. This might be a good thing. But one troubling aspect of this of course is that even if you are not on a no-fly list, you are still providing TSA highly-detailed, highly-matchable record of all your airline travel. But don’t worry they have a privacy<\/a> section. Which says basically that they promise to be careful with the information. It does not say that they promise not to store the information or not use it for other purposes. In fact, TSA has been exempted<\/a> from many of the provisions that normally govern the collection of personal information. <\/p>\n

\nTSA is claiming the following exemptions for certain records within the Secure Flight Records system: 5 U.S.C. 552a(c)(3) and (4); (d)(1), (2), (3), and (4); (e)(1), (2), (3), (4)(G) through (I), (5), and (8); (f), and (g).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to their response to concerns filed by EFF and EPIC, most of the rules they claim exemption from have to do with a person’s right know what data has been collected about them so that it can be corrected. TSA asserts that we don’t have that right, because there might be classified information in the database. But wait, if there is incorrect data, or I am falsely matched, wouldn’t that be depriving me of a right to travel? TSA claims that even if the data is wrong, preventing you from flying is not a violation because flying as a particular mode of travel is not a right guaranteed in the Constitution — after all, nobody is stopping you from walking or riding your horse across the country, right? <\/p>\n

While I’m sure the claim that the founders of the constitution did not envision air travel is correct, i think it is probably also true that they did not envision the construction of massive databases capable of tracking and recording the travel history of all citizens, even if they have never been suspected of any crime. My limited skimming of the documents suggests that data the TSA is collecting is not limited to name, gender and birth date, I think the airlines are required to provide phone #, address, email, and itinerary if they have it–they just are not required to collect it directly from passengers (or to notify us that that information will be provided to the database). <\/p>\n

Another thing I find disturbing is that in TSA’s “Myth Busters<\/a>” section there are several statements like: <\/p>\n

Drew Griffin of CNN repeatedly says he is on the watch list but he is not. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure Drew is relieved to know that he’s not suspected of being a terrorist, but TSA’s response doesn’t refute the claim that Drew is getting searched and hassled on many flights without having done anything wrong, presumably because of a name match with someone in the database who is suspected of something. <\/p>\n

If the various security agencies are only now beginning to implement some of the crudest best practices in data management, and are evasive when confronted with errors, why should we trust that they are doing a good job at protecting our civil liberties? I’m sure that there are a few dangerous people in the world who would like to cause great harm, but is this really going to keep us safe from them? Won’t they use a stolen id anyway? If it is really about security, wouldn’t our resources be better spent investigating those 2,500 “dangerous” people without building systems that have strong potential for repressive miss-use? Even if the actual plans for the system are not “evil”, once that data exists it is more likely to get misused. <\/p>\n

How many records are we talking about here? Another TSA page<\/a> seems to make an indirect assertion that the “watch lists” contain: <\/p>\n