PRIVACY PROTECTION

ASTA was on hand recently to represent the interests of the travel agency community at the fourth public meeting of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection (ACACP), which focused on airline passengers’ data security. Paul Ruden, ASTA senior vice-president legal & industry affairs, observed that: “This meeting focused primarily on the privacy of personal information collected in connection with the purchase of air travel from airlines and travel agents, of all shapes and sizes. DOT asked ASTA to help the committee understand what data travel agents collect, how they collect it and what policies and measures are in place to secure it.” During the meeting, Ruden provided a brief overview of the travel agency perspective, and introduced ASTA Premium Member Stan Brown, vice-president of business development at Omega World Travel in Fairfax, VA, who provided the committee with an overview of Omega’s procedures and policies for collecting, storing, transmitting and securing customer data. The committee also heard from staff members from the DOT’s Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings on the steps taken by the Department to implement the committee’s first set of recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation and an update on the status of ongoing rulemaking and enforcement initiatives affecting consumer protection in air travel, including DOT’s ongoing crackdown on code-share notification violations.