Ebusiness in Global Perspective Fighting Terrorism with BI Software Since the World Trade Center attacks of 2001, the war the program has sparked substantial controversy both by against terror and the prevention of future attacks have privacy groups and by foreign govemments. Groups such become increasingly important. Security has been tight as the American CMl Uberties Union in the United States ened substantially around the world, and immense efforts claim that the program is to intrusive and violates individual are undertaken to identify potential terrorists long before rights. The European Union has strong reservations about they can do any harm. Information technology, and data the system, since privacy laws in Europe do not permit such mining systems in particular, is playing an increasing role in extensive sharing of data, especially with a foreign govern this effort. The approach is similar to how companies ink ment. The scope of the system is still subject to a fierce internal and extemal databases to identify new opportuni- debate. Supporters of the system argue that the threat ties or to anticipate potential problems of terrorism is more important than privacy concerns and Bylinking government databases from various sources, that every available technology should be used to identify for example, Immigration and law enforcement, data suspects Others are more cautious and only want the system mining techniques can be employed to identify persons of to match passenger data with lists of known suspects. Interest." The federal government in the United States has No matter what the ultimate capabilities of the system, Introduced a system that could be used to make air travel it does give an interesting book into the future. Will more secure. The program requires all airlines to electron software be used to identify potential criminals before cally submit passenger information to the U.S. government they ever commit a crime? before a flight. The information demanded by the govern ment is quite comprehensive and has been subject to a U.S. Transportation Security Administration heated privacy debate: In addition to name, nationality, www.tsa.gov and age of the passenger, additional information, such as Questions credit card number, telephone number, and even the type of meal, is among the data requested. This information 1. What other govemment uses can you see for data: is cross-referenced with government databases as well as mining systems? extemal sources such as credit card databases. Instead of 2. What are the implications of using data-mining tech only matching passenger data with "wanted lists, the nologies to prevent terrorism? What are the benefits? data is analyzed to find potential terrorists, even if they do What are the dangers? not appear suspicious on the surface. 3. Do you think Canada should introduce laws that gov According to the U.S. government, every passenger em the use of data mining by the private sector and would be assigned a colour, depending on the score the government? determined by the system. Green means that no further checks are required. Yellow means that additional screening Sources: Wired, American CM Liberties Unior US transportation Security is necessary. If a passenger is flagged as red, he or she will Administration, not be permitted to board a flight. The announcement of