Shills on travel Web sites

I'm quoted in the BBC's online magazine about the problems of shills (impostors associated with a business who pretend to be ordinary customers while talking up the company and/or talking down its competitors) on travel Web sites, a phenomenon I wrote about most recently here a few months ago. The comments on the BBC Web site are worth reading for some examples of readers' experiences with shills.

As usual, there was only room in the published story for a few snippets from a longer interview. Here's more:

"Clear" shuts down its registered-traveller system

Verified Identity Pass, Inc. ("VIP") shut down its Clear traveller registration and airport fast-lane scheme last week. Under the Clear scheme, and two much smaller competing ones run by other companies, air travellers could get access to dedicated lanes leading up to TSA checkpoints in airports, in exchange for payment of about $200 per person per year and submission of detailed information (which is passed on to the TSA) including fingerprints, iris scans, residence histories, permission for police and other record checks, etc.

I was interviewed about this by KGO (Channel 7) television, but of course only brief sound bites were used on the air. For more background, see my previous articles about Clear and other "trusted traveller" and "registered traveller" schemes:

• 7 July 2004
• 26 September 2005
• 9 February 2006
• 26 April 2006

VIP has ceased Clear operations and has no other lines of business or source of income, but hasn't (yet) filed for bankruptcy. That means they are still in control of their archives of data about Clear cardholders (once VIP filed for bankruptcy, those decisions would be up to the bankruptcy court ), but also that there may still be time for customers who move quickly to get small claims court judgements against VIP for refunds before they go bankrupt. Class-action lawsuits for Clear fee refunds have also been filed, but will take longer -- probably too long for judgments to be issued before VIP is forced into bankruptcy.

What's next?

"Enhancing" the drivers license

I'm on a panel this afternoon at CFP to discuss the "enhanced" drivers' licenses (EDL's) being issued in some U.S. states and Canadian provinces:

Border-line ID: "Enhancing" the drivers license - for security or surveillance?

This session will examine technical and political contradictions in the development of "enhanced" drivers licenses as a passport alternative for entering the US at land or sea borders. It will draw on experts in the public, private and civil society sectors with their differing perspectives on the rationales and risks of enhancing drivers licenses by incorporating radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and citizenship information.

Karl Koscher, RFID researcher, Graduate student, Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
Edward Hasbrouck, Author, Journalist, Blogger, Consumer Advocate, and Travel Expert
Christopher Calabrese, Counsel, Technology & Liberty Program, American Civil Liberties Union
Moderator: Andrew Clement, Professor, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

Some links and notes for additional background:

Congress to vote on virtual strip searches at airports

I'm spending this wek in Washington, DC, at one of my favorite annual events, the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. There's live streaming video of the conference plenaries, although I don;t think it includes the breakout sessions such as the one Thursday where I'll be talking about the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the enhanced drivers licenses (in the USA and Canada) with embedded long-range RFID radio tracking beacons.

Also in Washington this week, I met with aides to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, whose proposed amendment to the TSA Authorization Act to restrict the use of virtual strip searches at airport checkpoints will be voted on by the full House of Representatives on Thursday. If you care about this, and don't want your only choices to be, "strip or get groped", call or e-mail your Representative in Congress today.

"Today we're all prisoners in the USA"

I've posted an important alert today in the Identity Project blog about a change in U.S. government rules that could trap you inside (or outside) the borders of the USA, unable to leave the country or to return -- even if you're a U.S. citizen.

Jeff Farias radio show today

It's short notice, but I'll be on the Jeff Farias Show today at 5 p.m. PDT, 8 p.m. EDT. You can listen on KXXT radio, 1010 AM in Phoenix, AZ, or live online on the Internet wherever you are.

[Update: Here's the archived "podcast": of the show; the segment with me is at the start of the throd hour. Some things I mentioned during today's show include the virtual strip search petition, the latest news and the FAQ about "Secure Flight", the California DMV's attempted (but to date unsuccessful) end run around opposition to Real-ID through a contractor-operated digital photo-matching system -- and the excellent prospects for summer travel bargains!]

Update on currency conversion fee lawsuit

Not much of substance has happened, but some additional documents (see below) have been filed in the class action lawsuit against credit card companies and banks for hiding their fees foreign-currency credit, debit, and ATM card transactions.

The Amazing Race 14, Episode 11

Beijing (China) - Maui, HI (USA)

This season of The Amazing Race 14 ended in very much the same vein as the previous season, with a task in which the racers had to compete in recognizing images symbolizing places they had been in the month-long race around the world, and placing them in the proper order.

My reaction to this remains the same. The important things, and the ones we are actually most likely to remember from a trip like this, aren't the images or even the "adventure" activities but the experiences of interacting with other people along the way.

As I asked in a a couple of recent Pecha Kucha talks:

What's left of the trip after we get home? We buy souvenirs, and we take photos. But do the photos become our memories? Do we remember the places and times we didn't take pictures, and the things we didn’t buy?

What's next for the race? CBS has commissioned "The Amazing Race 15", and casting is going on now. Look for race markers if you're travelling later this summer, with the next season to be broadcast starting this autumn, at the earliest.

What's next for me? In addition to testifying this week in Sacramento against a harebrained scheme to withhold drivers licenses and state ID cards if a DMV contractor's facial recognition robot mistakes your photo for that of anyone else in the state (and thus prevent you from flying or travelling by Amtrak unless you have a passport), I'll be in Washington the first week in June for the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. I hope to see some of you at the conference, at Hostelling International in downtown DC where I'm staying, or sharing stories at the travelers circle on Wednesday evening, June 3rd, at the Kabab House at 1108 K Street, N.W. (catty-corner from the hostel).

Most importantly, what's next for your travel plans, dear readers? I've been getting a flood of press releases from travel companies with their predictions for whether or not people people will still be travelling this summer in spite of the economic crisis. I'm not sure if they are trying to persuade potential investors to lend them (more) money to fund their (continuing) losses, persuade themselves that there's light at the end of the tunnel, or persuade the public not to worry about money, and to take an expensive vacation, because "everyone else is doing it".

Should you believe these press releases? Should you care?

What does Air France do with reservation data?

Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines present quite different "corporate cultures", despite being owned by the same French parent corporation , the Air France-KLM Group . Unfortunately, my latest experiments have shown that these two airlines have in common a disregard for the privacy and data protection laws applicable to their respective jurisdictions under common principles mandated by the 1995 European Union Data Protection Directive.

I've posted previously about my (unsuccessful) year-long effort to get KLM to tell me what records the have about me and my travels, who else they've allowed to see them, and what they've done with them.

In the extended article below, I describe my more recent attempts to get the same information from Air France, with links to my correspondence including the partial copies of my passenger name records (PNR's) that they eventually sent me. I've posted the story in some detail because it shows the lengths to which travel companies will go to avoid complying with privacy and data disclosure and access rules: they give easy access to personal information to everyone except the data subjects. But that's also why it's so important for travellers to make these requests.

Air France ignored my written request until after the legal deadline, then lied to me about what they had done and the reasons for the delay. They gave me a written response only after I told them I was on my way to their headquarters in person. When I attempted -- with ample advance notice -- to inspect their records about me and get an explanation of what they meant "sur place" at their head office in Paris, I was turned away at the entrance, and told they never allow anyone to exercise their right of access on site (despite the requirements of French data protection law and regulations). No responsible or identifiable person would speak to me.

The letter they eventually gave me was late and incomplete, and some of the data was in proprietary codes which they refused to explain. Many of my questions, and many of the categories of data which they have about me, and which I had requested, were simply ignored. They didn't even give me a complete copy of my ticket (which exists in electronic form solely in their systems) of breakdown of the fare, taxes, "fees", and "charges" I had paid. Like KLM, they would tell me nothing about what their agents or contractors has done with my data.

Perhaps worst of all, they admitted that they don't know who accessed my data, and that it might have been retrieved by any of a hundred thousand or more travel agents and contractors in countries around the world. The systems in which reservations are stored have neither fine-grained access controls nor any built-in access logging:

[T]he reservation file, for the period of its validity, was accessible, in respect of yourself by ... Air France, ... All travel agencies, provided they were in possession of the exact file number and your name, [and the] Amadeus help desk.

Finally, they admitted that some of the information I had requested was destroyed by Air France contractors and third-party recipients while my request was pending, despite my specific request that Air France immediately notify them of my request, and take steps to preserve the responsive data.

I would welcome any Francophone legal or translation volunteers to assist me in pursuing my complaint with CNIL or, if necessary, through litigation in France.

The sometimes surreal details:

The Amazing Race 14, Episode 10

Guilin (China) - Beijing (China)

The latest two-part episode of The Amazing to Race 14 was spent entirely in China, punctuated by advertisements from online travel agency Travelocity.com for discounted hotel rates, and for part of the time with the teams of racers required to carry half-meter (18") high Travelocity mascot dolls with them through the streets.

Which gives me two things to talk about: travel in China, and online hotel discounts .

In my previous column I talked about the "merchant model" of hotel discounting, how it works, and how and why it has developed since 11 September 2001. Finding hotel discounts is, however, as much about finding the best-value hotels (and knowing where to find them) as it is about finding the lowest prices at those hotels.

Most travel in the USA -- and for that matter in China and many other countries -- is domestic. Online travel agencies based in the USA typically have quite limited listings of hotels in other countries, especially outside the biggest cities and the destinations most visited by travellers from the USA. In places where USA-based Web sites list only a few hotels, these are likely to be the most expensive hotels in town.

This is why, outside the First World and unless you insist on five-star "international" hotels, the best hotel values are rarely found on the Web sites of companies based in the USA. You'll find more options, including many more lower-category hotels, on local and regional Web sites like those listed below .

Both business and leisure travellers have cut back on their spending (if they are still traveling at all), and are staying in less expensive hotels. As each group of travelers downgrades their accommodations, that leaves the highest vacancy rates at the most expensive hotels. As a result, the largest dollar and percentage discounts are currently being offered on four and five-star hotels.

Even in the most expensive big cities around the world, you can currently find at least a four-star hotel room, and often a five-star one, for no more than about US$100 per night -- the price point being advertised most heavily by Travelocity during "The Amazing Race 14". That's what I paid for four-star hotels in London and Brussels in recent months (although through Hotwire and Priceline, not Travelocity), even during the busy Easter travel week in London, a normally expensive city where rooms would have cost twice that much a year ago -- or this year if I'd been a walk-in guest who didn't haggle and paid the rack rate..

But what's the best value for you depends on your destination, your budget, and your preferences. In a less pricey destination, or if your standards aren't as high, you may get a better value, even with less of a discount (or none at all), at a three-star hotel for US$59 such as Travelocity switched to advertising this week.

Many of the fittings and components that go into a hotel in the USA are made in China. They're cheaper at the source in China, as is the labor to assemble them into a hotel. Even before the current wave of discounting, you could get ample comfort, comparable to the facilities of a four-star hotel in the USA, in any city in China (including little-touristed provincial cities of "only" a few million people) for no more than half of what similar facilities would cost in the USA.

The teams in "The Amazing Race 14", for example, changed planes in Guangzhou without leaving the airport. What would it have cost them to spend the night?