An aviation industry clearinghouse is collecting data on air travelers from billions of flights — and selling it to Trump’s immigration enforcers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29414662

A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.

The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.

Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

    • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
      26·
      2 days ago

      They try to upsell every little thing. I’m surprised that isn’t an option - “don’t sell my data to ICE: $100”

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
        6·
        20 hours ago

        And then they’d just sell it anyway because who the fuck is gonna do anything to them

      • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 hours ago

        And they receive how many subsidies? Would be unviable without massive public infrastructure? Without air traffic control? How many bailouts has the industry received?

        It’s practically a socialist institution at this point, can we not just pull that bandaid and either nationalize it or cut the subsidies all together? Not to mention the carbon impact of so many flights all the godamn time is having.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        14·
        1 day ago

        Grocery stores in the US have thin margins too 🤡

        Somehow lidl and aldi are able to enter US market and compete on price anyway.

        Sounds like a skill issue tbh

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
            1·
            4 hours ago

            Esp if you are low income American…

            Imagine instead of slop dollar store, you have access to a place that sells actual food…

            But American clown capitalism can’t supply the poors with food 🤡

      • skarn@discuss.tchncs.de
        8·
        1 day ago

        They do in Europe. And the flight is somehow still cheaper.

        But in the US the doors fall off the plane, the ticket is overpriced, but they somehow still lose money which they have to recoup by selling airmiles to credit cards and your data to ICE.

        There is a lot I really don’t get about the US flight industry. Only explanation that makes sense is lack of competition due excessive consolidation with antitrust asleep at the wheel.

        • biofaust@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 hours ago

          Please notice I said real money. Of course they make some money from the tickets, but the highest number I could find is 60% of revenue, and you have to calculate that it is a hyper-regulated seasonal industry.

        • Grapho@lemmy.ml
          4·
          20 hours ago

          They have “thin margins” because the C suite charges about 50k per email sent. Fucking parasites.

          • skarn@discuss.tchncs.de
            2·
            18 hours ago

            Parasites for sure but…

            Delta has 60 billions revenue.

            Unless the C suite earns a couple billion per person, that’s not what’s preventing it from flying planes profitably.