The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) yesterday said that its program to assume vetting process for airline passengers against government watch lists enters the next phase this Saturday when participating airlines must begin asking passengers for their birth dates and genders in addition to their names.
In May, under the Secure Flight program, TSA required the participating airlines to begin collecting the names of passengers as they appear on the government issued credentials they would be traveling with. The passenger information is collected when a reservation is booked.
Secure Flight shifts pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from airlines to TSA. The ability of the airlines to do the watch list matching has often been criticized by Congress because many passengers, including members of Congress, routinely were pulled aside for additional scrutiny because their names were similar to or the same as known or suspected terrorists in the government databases.
TSA plans to vet all passengers on all domestic commercial flights by early 2010 and all passengers on all international commercial flights into, out of, or over the United States by the end of next year. For security reasons, the agency has not released how many or which airlines are currently participating in Secure Flight.
The purpose of the watch list matching is to prevent known or suspected terrorists from obtaining an airline boarding pass.