TSA could start searching Twitter, Facebook posts of PreCheck applicants

If you've been slowly shuffling through an airport security line, holding your pants up with one hand and your belt and shoes in the other, you've probably eyeballed the lucky travelers who were whisked through the TSA PreCheck line, shoes, belts and laptops intact. The TSA is doing what it can to make its for-pay pre-screening program more attractive, but some proposed components of its background checks are raising eyebrows and privacy concerns.

TSA recently posted – and has since withdrawn – a request for proposals from private companies that would conduct background checks on potential PreCheck applicants. According to the New York Times, the proposal said that when evaluating applicants, companies could use "criminal and other governmental records [and] other publicly available information such as directories, press reports, location data and information that individuals post on blogs and social media sites." That means that TSA could scroll through your Twitter and Facebook posts, possibly evaluating you based on those gripes you posted about airlines or airports — and we've all griped about airlines and airports.

The request for proposals has been pulled due to "some difficulties with the language" used, not necessarily because of any privacy concerns. It has been predicted that the TSA will reissue the proposal with minor revisions, but social media could still be fair game.

There are an estimated 950,000 travelers who have applied for – and received – TSA PreCheck clearance. According to the TSA, eleven domestic airline carriers and over 120 U.S. airports currently participate in the program.

The TSA and the private companies it has worked with (and could work with in the future) can use a tremendous amount of sensitive personal information to evaluate PreCheck applicants and there are ongoing concerns about what happens to that information. Greeley Koch, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, told the Times

How secure is the biometric and personal data? What happens to the data if these companies go out of business? Is that data then just for sale to whoever decides to buy the company? We’re not necessarily against the idea, but we’re concerned about the execution.

If you have similar concerns, you might not want to post them on Twitter. At least not yet.