WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal employees who persuaded JetBlue Airways to give a defense contractor personal information about 1.5 million passengers — without their knowledge or permission — will have to undergo training about privacy issues.
Employees of the Transportation Security Administration broke the spirit, but not the letter, of federal privacy laws, Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, said Friday. She said fewer than six current employees were involved.
As a result of her internal investigation, Kelly concluded that the TSA didn't violate the law because it never possessed the passenger data. But, she said, JetBlue wouldn't have turned over the passenger information unless TSA had asked it to.
"TSA involvement was essential," Kelly said in a briefing with reporters.
Willful violation of the Federal Privacy Act of 1974 is a misdemeanor and carries a civil fine of up to $5,000.
JetBlue gave the passenger records in September 2002 to Torch Concepts, a Defense Department contractor that used the information as part of a study seeking ways to predict who posed a risk to military installations.
The airline turned over to Torch more than 5 million records — including at least name, address, telephone number and some itinerary-related information — representing more than 1.5 million passengers, according to Kelly's 10-page report on the investigation.
The report said Torch stripped the data of the passengers' name and later destroyed the tests.
Details of the study and JetBlue's involvement were reported in September, prompting several class-action lawsuits, a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, a separate investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general and congressional inquiries.
The New York-based airline sent an e-mail apologizing to angry customers for violating its own privacy policy and said it wouldn't happen again.