More airlines than originally thought secretly provided passenger data for a US government screening system in possible violation of privacy laws, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
Two big reservation systems also provided names, addresses, credit card numbers and other data, said the Transportation Security Administration's acting administrator, David Stone.
America West, Frontier Airlines, Continental Airlines, and the Sabre and Galileo reservation systems gave passenger data to the TSA or companies working for the agency in 2002 and 2003, Stone said in a signed affidavit released at his Senate confirmation hearing to head the agency.
JetBlue, American Airlines and Northwest Airlines have previously disclosed that they also shared passenger records with government researchers, despite promises to keep them private.
Delta Air Lines provided artificial passenger records but asked for them to be deleted five days later, Stone said. The TSA also ordered Delta to provide passenger records to the US Secret Service during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, he said.
Response from companies named in the report was varied. Frontier, America West, and Continental said the passenger records were protected by nondisclosure agreements and destroyed when testing was finished. Delta said it had no choice but to comply with government requests.
