Re: 3+ Million passengers to be misidentified?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Krishna Kumar <kmkumar () earthling net>
Date: August 15, 2007 4:42:38 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] 3+ Million passengers to be misidentified?

For IP....

1) The actual numbers will be worse.  According to the TSA NPRM, the
program will cover both domestic flights AND international flights.

http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/secureflight_nprm.pdf


The ATA report quoted doesn't give you international flight numbers,

However, another back of the envelope:

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile- 
english&y=2007&m=March&x=20070303174902lnkais0.2752497


51 million int. visitors to the US in 2006:

16 million from Canada
13 million from Mexico

20 million arriving from rest of the world;  most likely by air

You also have to include American LEAVING the US as well.

I'd say at least another 100 million air passengers on int. flights.

2) Also, the actual system will track you with a variety of other  
metrics,
including passport information and other things.  TSA notes that if you
don't give information, you may have problems.  So why you are only
required to give your name/birthdate/gender, the 3.5 million people who
fall into the grey zone will have to give more information to fly.

3)  72 hour rule.  According  to TSA, you have to provide that info 72
hours before flying (according to TSA 90% of travel reservations are
finalized 72 hours in advance).  What are you supposed to do with the  
10%
-- or 60 million people -- who don't finalize in 72 hours?


4)  Data retention:  TSA got good marks from privacy people on no  
keeping
data on people who don't match.   However, people who do match (the .05
percent, as well as the 10% who buy last minute tickets) may get  
their data
retained for 7 years.  Have fun on your next flight!

5)  I understand these are BIG numbers.  But how is that I can apply  
for a
credit card -- a more intrusive survey -- and get a response in 30  
seconds,
or how is that MC/Visa can process a billion transactions a day --  
and TSA
can't run names against a database in a 24 hour window (let alone a 5
minute window).   This entire system is unwieldy and pointless -- if  
I was
a terrorist all I  would need is a fake passport # to give to the  
airline
(not even a fake passport),  be cleared in a 72 hour window,  show  
up, give
a crappy fake passport to the check-in people (as you know, they are
trained to recogonize those things) and be on my flight.




> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Stephen D. Poe" <sdpoe () acm org>
> Date: August 14, 2007 7:50:02 PM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: 3+ Million passengers to be misidentified?
> Reply-To: sdpoe () acm org
>
> Dave -
>
> For IP if you like.
>
> Putting together two different sets of facts and running what we used
> to call a back-of-the-envelope calculation:
>
> "The government proposed a third version of its airline passenger pre-
> screening program... With the full name, we can resolve 95 percent of
> the cases correctly. The date of birth adds 3.5 percent to that, and
> the gender adds another one percent," Hawley said." ('Feds offer
> simpler flight screening plan', http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070809/
> ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/secure_flight)
>
> So I believe Hawley is stating the final error rate is 0.5% mis-
> identifications.
>
> The Air Transport Association lists 671.7 million US domestic airline
> passengers for 2006 ( ATA 2006 Annual Report, http://www.airlines.org/
> NR/rdonlyres/0E9E7072-
> ECC6-4CED-8B8E-6857256935E7/0/2007AnnualReport.pdf).
>
> Using the 2006 passenger figures, that would mean the third version
> of the system using all three proposed pieces of information would
> 'only' misidentify 3.36 million  passengers a year.
>
> Either Hawley's math is bad or something is wrong.
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
>
>
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