What's Your ATS Score?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation Files Suit to Find That Out, and More
Posted by Joe Addiego
On December 19, 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act complaint against the Department of Homeland Security concerning the Automated Targeting System, public notice of which was recently given by DHS in the Federal Register. ATS is a computerized system that collects personal data and uses it to assign “risk assessments” to all travelers who cross U.S. borders.
EFF has several concerns about ATS and its uses and potential abuses by DHS. For example, EFF alleges in its complaint that individuals are not allowed to access or review the information in ATS pertaining to them, yet that information is “made readily available to an untold numbers of federal, state, local and foreign agencies, as well as a wide variety of ‘third parties.’” EFF also complains that the information will be stored by the government for 40 years, and that DHS “has failed to describe the consequences that might result from a ‘risk assessment’ score (possibly derived from inaccurate or incomplete information) indicating that an individual poses a ‘threat or potential threat to national or international security.’”
Incidentally, the same day that EFF filed its complaint, Stewart Baker, DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy, spoke on “Terrorist Screening and Privacy Issues” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stating that ATS is not used to assign “risk scores” to travelers, but rather that the collected data is used to determine if any particular traveler poses a risk to national security. Despite this denial, others are critical about DHS’ assignment of risk assessments to travelers, whether or not they are given a specific score.
EFF’s suit is designed to gain access to DHS records concerning ATS. EFF specifically seeks documents regarding any due process systems that were established to govern the use of information contained in ATS, error rates of databases used in ATS to assign risk levels, and security measures to protect the ATS database from hackers, among other things. If and when EFF obtains these documents, it is expected that they will be used by EFF or others to wage further attacks on ATS.