Aims To Reduce False Positives Against "Watch List"

If you've ever been delayed getting through an airport because your Irish grandmother or two-year-old son turned up on the TSA's terrorist watchlist, there's finally new hope.

The Associated Press reports Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Wednesday the final rule for a program called Secure Flight, which would validate your information to reduce the chances you'll be mistaken for someone else on a watch list.

Secure Flight seeks to improve the way the list works by using full names, sex and birthdate. That way, if there's another person out there with your name, and he's on the watch list... unless he has the same middle name and birthday as yours, you shouldn't be confused with him at the airport.

"We know that threats to our aviation system persist," Chertoff said. "Secure Flight will help us better protect the traveling public while creating a more consistent passenger prescreening process, ultimately reducing the number of misidentification issues."

Obviously, turning over the more precise information when you fly is also a half-step to identity theft if the system's security is compromised. That's why Secure Flight was delayed.

Privacy advocates heard the Bush administration was going to test it with real data, and wanted safeguards. The program has now been tested and reviewed, and will come with a formal privacy policy for use of the information.

AP reports the government has spent a total of $240 million to implement and improve the watchlist program since the 9/11 attacks, and another $82 million is budgeted for fiscal 2009.

More than 43,000 people have formally complained to the TSA that their names are on the list by mistake.

FMI: www.tsa.gov