Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including AA, UA, and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the USG for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples' movements. ARC's data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples' names, full flight itineraries, and financial details. ARC acts as a bridge between airlines and travel agencies, in which it helps with fraud prevention and finds trends in travel data. ARC also sells passenger data to the USG as part of what it calls the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP). TIP is updated every day with the previous day's ticket sales and can show a person's paid intent to travel. USG agencies can then search this data by name, credit card, airline, and more.
