Lawmakers seek probe into US failure to enforce airline passenger privacy rules

Two Democratic U.S. lawmakers, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Shontel Brown, have requested an investigation into the Transportation Department's (USDOT) failure to protect the privacy of airline passengers, according to a report by Reuters. The lawmakers, speaking in a letter, pointed out that USDOT has never brought any enforcement cases related to passenger data in over four decades, despite numerous high-profile privacy breaches affecting hundreds of millions of travelers.

The letter emphasized that USDOT's neglect of its privacy regulation duties has exposed the sensitive personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans to corporate exploitation, warrantless government surveillance, and seizure of property. It also highlighted that travel data held by airlines and travel agencies could be of interest to foreign adversaries.

While U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy did not immediately respond to the allegations, a spokesperson for the department claimed that a review of the handling of passenger data by the 10 largest U.S. airlines was launched in March 2024 under President Joe Biden. However, two years later, it remains uncertain whether this review resulted in any significant changes.

The Department of Transportation did not release airlines' responses to their inquiries and did not announce any public findings or enforce any subsequent actions. Airlines for America, a trade group representing U.S. airlines, declined to comment on the matter. The letter noted that the Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC), owned collectively by major U.S. airlines, has sold access to a database containing around 722 million passenger records to various federal agencies, including Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service, without warrants or court oversight.

ARC ended this practice in November 2025, but DHS recently requested a replacement surveillance system for airline passenger data. The letter also mentioned a 2016 Justice Department audit that revealed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had paid airline employees millions of dollars to obtain private passenger data of Americans.

The letter concluded by stating that mishandling consumers' private information could be considered an unfair or deceptive practice by airlines, potentially leading to civil penalties.