Air Canada lies about government access to reservations [papersplease]
November 20, 2012 Leave a comment
Airlines should have been defending their customers against government demands for information. Instead, they have chosen to collaborate with governments not just in surveillance and violation of the rights of their customers, but in the cover-up of those practices and the attempt to keep travelers from realizing their extent.
We got a letter from Air Canada yesterday informing us that, “Your personal information was not disclosed to a government agency with respect to the flights mentioned in your Request…”
If we didn’t know better, this would be reassuring. But it’s not true.
As it happens, we had gotten another letter earlier this week from the Canadian Border Services Administration (CBSA), containing portions of its records of Passenger Name Record (PNR) and Advance Passenger Information (API) data about our flights on Air Canada, which CBSA had obtained from computerized reservation systems and Air Canada’s Departure Control System (DCS):
