September 20, 2003
NY Times confirms that JetBlue Sucks
As noted in BlogWood several days ago, JetBlue Sucks.
JetBlue Airways acknowledged publicly today that it had provided a Pentagon contractor with information on more than one million of its passengers as part of a program to track down terrorists and other "high risk" passengers. That data, which was turned over in violation of the airline's own privacy policies, was then used to identify the passengers' Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations.
JetBlue, a three-year-old discount airline, sent an e-mail message to passengers this week, conceding that it had made a mistake in providing the records last year to Torch Concepts, an Army contractor in Huntsville, Ala., for a research project on "airline passenger risk assessment."
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Privacy rights groups expressed astonishment that JetBlue had shared so much passenger information with a contractor, describing the privacy breach as among the most serious reported by any American company in recent years.
JetBlue's announcement comes at a time when many civil liberties groups are warning that privacy rights are becoming victims of the government's struggle against terrorism and the desire of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for quick access to customer information that has traditionally been closely held by corporations.
Posted by Norwood at September 20, 2003 11:32 AM