DHS Ends Criticized Data-Mining Program

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007, before the House Homeland Security Committee. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh - AP)

Then, in separate reports released without fanfare in July and August, the DHS inspector general and privacy office concluded that between 2004 and 2007, three pilot tests of ADVISE used personally identifiable information without first issuing required privacy impact assessments. The privacy office said this "created unnecessary privacy risks."

The errors were in pilot programs involving weapons of mass effect, immigration enforcement and the DHS intelligence analysis office, the privacy office said.

This is the second such error at DHS.

The Secure Flight program to screen domestic air travelers was blocked by Congress after it acquired live personal data for testing. That program has since issued a privacy impact assessment, dropped use of commercial data such as personal credit card histories, and will begin tests this fall.

"Data analysis programs hold real promise for protecting America, but they need to be tested using dummy data before being used on real data," said James Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group. "Why this mistake keeps getting made over and over again, I don't understand."

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said database tools "must be closely supervised to prevent abusing the rights and the privacy of ordinary Americans. All too often, the Bush administration has treated safeguards for databases as a disposable afterthought if at all."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said DHS "must follow federal privacy laws _ in this case the E-Government Act which requires privacy impact assessments before personal information can be used _ in order to maintain public support for these new technologies."

Among the data the privacy office found had been plugged into ADVISE pilot projects were:

_The no-fly list of people barred from domestic air travel and the list of people who require special inspections before flying.

_More than 3.6 million shipping records from a commercial data provider with names of cargo shippers and consignees.

_Terrorist Screening Center lists of people who tried to cross the U.S.-Canadian border at a port-of-entry.

_Classified intelligence reports about illicit traffic in weapons of mass effect.