Investigation into the major U.S. airlines' data security and privacy policies has been introduced by the Department of Transportation in a bid to determine potentially unfair data monetization and sharing with third parties as part of the Biden administration's efforts to bolster consumer privacy, TechCrunch reports.
Under the review, executives of United, Delta, American, JetBlue, Southwest, Frontier, Spirit, Alaska, Hawaiian, and Allegiant would be asked to detail their companies' processes of collecting and managing the personal information gathered from customers; monetizing customer data; and training on how such data should be managed, according to the Transportation Department. Such a review will be conducted by the agency with the help of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who previously warned about the threat posed by data brokers. "Because consumers will often never know that their personal data was misused or sold to shady data brokers, effective privacy regulation cannot depend on consumer complaints to identify corporate abuses," Wyden said.
