Homeland Security Suspends Trusted Traveler Program

Verified Identity Pass, Inc., which operates the "Clear" program lost 33,000 customers’ records when an unencrypted laptop was stolen.

While it was recovered a week later, what happened to the data is unclear.

Among the data was:

• Names
• Addresses
• Birth dates
• Driver's license, passport and green card data

Which one could describe as an "identity theft kit" for 33,000 people, and since the program also collects the following:

• Credit card information
• Digital photo
• Digital images of all of the applicant's fingerprints and his or her irises
• Previous home addresses for the past five years
• Digital images of passports and driver's licenses.

It could have been much worse.

Security expert Bruce Schneier analyzes this sort of "trusted traveler" program, and finds it wanting from a security standpoint:

I think of Clear as a $100 service that tells terrorists if the F.B.I. is on to them or not. Why in the world would we provide terrorists with this ability?