Fergie's Tech Blog

Data Mining Won't Catch Terrorists

James Gilden writes in The Los Angeles Times:

In the screening process, Homeland Security has analyzed such seemingly innocuous information as passengers' travel histories, frequent flier miles, number of bags checked, number of one-way tickets booked, e-mail addresses and even voluntary and involuntary upgrades. With that data, the department has assigned risk assessment scores to millions of travelers.

The program "mines," or analyzes, the data in the same way direct mail companies do to decide who gets catalogs or other solicitations.

But unlike direct mail, critics say, this type of passenger data analysis is not only ineffective, it may be illegal.

posted by Fergie @ 12/16/2006 03:28:00 PM