Booking your air tickets? Now, TSA wants to know your birth date and gender!

March 20, 2009 at 4:43 pm

(Source: Yahoo Travel;  Photo Coutesy: TSA)

 TSA Adds a New Twist to Passenger Screening

Just when you thought you had the Transportation Security Administration rules all figured out, here comes a new procedure. Starting sometime in the next few months, you’ll have to provide your birth date and gender whenever you buy an airplane ticket. The TSA is giving the airlines some time to change their websites and retrain their phone-reservations agents to be able to implement the agency’s new Secure Flight program. Expect the changes on domestic flights by this summer.

The change is supposed to help reduce the number of Americans who are misidentified as individuals on the agency’s no-fly and “selectee-for-further-inspection” watch lists. Up until now, airlines have done the work of vetting their passenger manifests for suspect names, but under the new program, the TSA assumes the job of monitoring watch lists full-time and implements “a uniform, efficient matching process.”

In a related move, the TSA is bringing back “gate checks,” the practice of pulling aside passengers for searches while they wait at airport gates to board planes even after they have already passed through security checkpoints!

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