Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
The Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (often abbreviated CAPPS) is a counter-terrorism system in place in the United States air travel industry. It seeks to pre-emptively identify terrorists attempting to board planes traveling in the United States. This system (CAPPS I) was first implemented in 1997, in response to the perceived threat of U.S. domestic terrorism after incidents like the explosion of TWA Flight 800 and the Centennial Olympic Park bombing several days later in 1996. In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration presented a proposal for an expanded system (CAPPS II), which has been approved by Congress for testing.
Overview
These systems rely on what is known as a Passenger Name Record, often abbreviated PNR. When a person books a plane ticket, certain identifying information is collected by the airline: full name, address, etc. This information is used to check against some data store (i.e., a TSA no-fly list, the FBI most wanted list, etc.) and assign a terrorism "risk score" to that person. High risk scores behoove the airline to subject the person to extended baggage and/or personal screening, and to contact law enforcement if necessary.
CAPPS I
CAPPS I was first put in place in 1999 by the Federal Aviation Administration at the behest of a special White House committee commissioned in 1996 by President Clinton. It is in use in airports around the world.
It is a system implemented by the individual airlines using data provided by the federal government. The system checks the PNR (as well as payment information) against the government supplied data and flags potential threats. There is no public disclosure of the rules that ascertain whether a person is a suspected terrorist threat.
In the investigations into the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, it was reported that 9 of the 19 implicated terrorists were flagged for additional scrutiny by the CAPPS I system, but none of them were intercepted. Sources have blamed this failure on the notion that CAPPS I was intended and designed to intercept bombs in checked luggage, and supposedly only 2 of the implicated terrorists had checked luggage.
CAPPS II
CAPPS II is a proposal for a new CAPPS system, designed by the Office of National Risk Assessment (ONRA), a subsidiary office of the TSA. Congress presented the TSA with a list of requirements for a successor to CAPPS I. Some of those requirements were:
- the government, not the airlines, will control and administer the system
- every ticketed passenger will be screened, for instance not just those who check bags
- every airline and every airport will be covered by the system
Like its predecessor, CAPPS II relies on the PNR to uniquely identify people attempting to board aircraft. It expands the PNR field to include a few extra fields, like a full street address, date of birth, and a home telephone number. It then cross-references these fields with government records and private sector databases to ascertain the identity of the person, and then determine a number of details about that person. Law enforcement will be contacted in the event that the person:
- is present on a terrorist or most-wanted list
- has outstanding Federal or state arrest warrants for violent crime
Otherwise, the software will calculate a "risk score" and then print a code on the boarding pass indicating the appropriate "screening level" for that person: green (no threat) indicates no additional screening, yellow (unknown or possible threat) indicates additional screening, and red (high risk) indicates no boarding and deferral to law enforcement. How this risk score is calculated is not disclosed or subject to public oversight of any kind outside of the TSA.
Controversy
CAPPS II has raised obvious civil liberties concerns, due in part to the potential for racial, ethnic, economic, or political profiling and discrimination. Particular concern has been raised about the use of credit reports in calculating the risk score. The TSA has emphatically stated that it will not use a person's credit score to determine its risk score, but this statement lacks any convincing force as there is no oversight outside the TSA and no legal requirement to disclose what factors are used to determine the risk score.
There are also substantial privacy and fairness concerns, since the government will be using private sector databases to ascertain identity and behavior patterns that supposedly indicate a potential terrorist. These private sector databases are unregulated, often fraught with errors, and most importantly not covered by the government regulations like the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which mandates that consumers have the right and the ability to view and correct private sector information about them.
Government entities external to the U.S., such as the European Union, have also expressed serious concerns about allowing CAPPS II to be implemented within their respective borders.
External Links
Government sources:
Critics: