Secure flight, what is it and how does it affect you?

 

The name on my passport which is my preferred identification while traveling is Jennifer Dawn Baeta. I was born on february 19, 1997, and I am female.

I am giving you this information in order to demonstrate that I would also give them to TSA (Transportation Security Administrator)

 And if you want to fly, you, too, will soon be required to disclose this data to the TSA, the lumbering, leaderless, secretive bureaucracy that has spent the years since 9/11 alternately keeping us safe and greatly infuriating us.

Giving the TSA that basic information seems logical enough. But the logistics are something else: Airline Web sites and reservations systems, third-party travel agencies, and the GDS (global distribution system) computers that power those ticketing engines haven't been programmed to gather birthday and gender data. And Secure Flight's insistence that the name on a ticket exactly match the name on a traveler's identification is also problematic: Fliers often use several kinds of ID that do not always have exactly the same name. (Does your driver's license and passport have exactly the same name on it?) Many travelers have existing airline profiles and frequent-flier program membership under names that do not exactly match the one on their IDs.

"Secure flight" went into effect last week in the typical TSA style, with virtually no public discussion and even fewer details about its implementation. What does it mean? let me share that too. 

Secure Flight is a program developed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a key 9/11 Commission recommendation: uniform watch list matching by TSA. The mission of the Secure Flight program is to enhance the security of domestic and international commercial air travel through the use of improved watch list matching. 

Secure Flight matches the name, date of birth and gender information for each passenger against government watch lists to:

• Identify known and suspected terrorists
• Prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft
• Identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening
• Facilitate passenger air travel
• Protect individuals' privacy

After matching passenger information against government watch lists, Secure Flight transmits the matching results back to aircraft operators. 

 Following 9/11 the TSA was specifically geared by congress to assume all authority over airport security and passenger screening. Before that, airlines were required to oversee security checkpoints, and carriers farmed out the job to rent-a-cop agencies. Their work was shoddy, and the minimum-wage screeners were often untrained. Since then, despite rigorous employee training and billions of dollars spent on new technology, random tests show that TSA screeners miss as much contraband as their minimum-wage, rent-a-cop predecessors. 

The most important fact to consider is the "watch list". Current estimates say there are as many as a million entries on the various lists, although the TSA argues that only a few thousand actual people are suspect. The TSA's theory: If passengers submit their exact names, dates of birth and their gender when they make reservations, the agency could proactively separate the terrorist Joe Smith from the regular Joe Smiths, and guarantee that the average Joe — or, in my case, the average Jenn Baeta — won't be fingered as a potential troublemaker. 

What can you do about this? Actually very little. However, to make your travels easier, settle on a single form of identification for all travel purposes and make sure that you use that name exactly when making reservations. Check that the name that airlines have for you — on preference profiles, frequent-flier programs, airport club memberships, etc. — matches the name on your chosen form of identification.

Where ever you go, I wish you happy and safe travels.