Privacy Group Pushes for Northwest Probe  

As ANN previously reported, Northwest Airlines recently admitted to secretly turning over up to 11 million passenger records to the US government in 2001. If a civil-liberties group has their way, the carrier should be held accountable and possibly fined for sharing this sensitive information.

"Northwest broke a promise to keep customer records private and should be investigated for deceptive business practices, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)," wrote in a filing with the Department of Transportation.

"We believe that there's a very clear case that disclosure violated the privacy assurances that Northwest had given to its passengers on its Web site," said EPIC General Counsel David Sobel.

Sobel indicated EPIC would likely file suit later in the week to compel NASA to disclose more about its research, including whether other airlines were involved. In its filing, EPIC also asked the Transportation Department to determine whether Northwest should pay civil fines or reimburse customers for breaking its privacy promise. The Transportation Department should also investigate how Northwest handles passenger data and require it to keep its promises in the future, EPIC said.

While Northwest admits it secretly gave passenger records to the NASA as part of an air-security study in December 2001, company officials say their customers' privacy was never compromised.

"This situation was entirely different as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of the passengers' information would be maintained," said company spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch.

Northwest is the third major U.S. airline to face a backlash for its cooperation with government efforts to help develop a passenger-screening system to root out possible hijackers. Delta Air Lines faced a boycott last spring for its participation in a pilot screening program and JetBlue Airways Corp.later apologized to customers last fall after admitting it had given passenger information to a Defense Department contractor.

Whether on the ground or in the air, it appears big brother is watching you.

FMI: www.nwa.com