Newly surfaced documents show the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subscribed to a commercial database covering more than a billion airline ticket records, using it to flag and track the movements of travelers under investigation — without obtaining a warrant. The subscription ran through the Travel Intelligence Program operated by the Airlines Reporting Corporation, a clearinghouse co-owned by American, Delta, and United.
The database gave the SEC access to passenger names, the credit card numbers used to purchase tickets, departure and arrival cities, and flight numbers. Built into the subscription was an alert system that checked new bookings against a government watchlist and flagged travel from the prior 24 hours, with the agency requesting between one and 25 daily alerts.
No Court Order Required
Because the data was purchased commercially rather than compelled through legal process, the SEC did not need a court order to obtain it — the government simply bought access to the same information investigators would otherwise need a warrant to compel directly. That distinction sits at the center of a broader debate over so-called data-broker loopholes, in which government agencies acquire sensitive personal information on the open market instead of through the judicial process the Fourth Amendment was designed to require.
ARC has defended the program's origins, noting the Travel Intelligence Program was established after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and arguing it has likely contributed to the prevention and apprehension of criminals. The FBI, IRS, and Department of Homeland Security had all previously drawn on the same system before it drew sustained scrutiny from lawmakers.
Wider Reach Than Previously Known
The newly released documents show the program's scope extended well beyond U.S. domestic flights. Records covered foreign-to-foreign journeys as well, meaning the SEC's monitoring capability reached travelers who never set foot in American airspace. That international reach had not been previously disclosed in as much detail.
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Sustained pressure from lawmakers eventually forced ARC to shut the Travel Intelligence Program down in 2025, cutting off the pipeline that had supplied the SEC and other federal agencies. But the fact that a civil markets regulator — rather than a law enforcement or intelligence agency — had access to this level of travel surveillance for years is likely to fuel renewed calls in Washington to close the data-broker loophole more broadly, including for financial regulators whose investigative powers were never designed with this kind of tracking in mind.
