If you are a U.S. citizen crossing the border over land, your information may be retained by the Department of Homeland Security for 15 years. That information may be used for criminal and intelligence investigations.
According to the Washington Post, Department of Homeland Security officials say that the Border Crossing Information System (BCIS), disclosed in July, is “part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats.” The information, including some personal data on Americans, “can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and … [can] be shared with foreign agencies when relevant to their hiring or contracting decisions.”
Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology says that while people expect the data to be checked, they “don’t expect the government to keep a record for 15 years of their comings into the country.”
DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said that the retention period is justified.
History has shown, whether you are talking about criminal or terrorist activity, that plotting, planning or even relationships among conspirators can go on for years. Basic travel records can, quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots.
Nojeim believes that the database is “worse than a watch list” because you get on a watch list for a reason. With the database, the only thing you did was “to lawfully cross the border.”
Under the BCIS, officials record name, birth date, gender, date and time of crossing, and a photo, where available, for U.S. travelers returning to the country by land, sea or air.
Privacy advocates are concerned because analysis can be undertaken that could implicate innocent people if appropriate safeguards are not used.
The BCIS will link to the Non-Federal Entity Data System, which holds personal information about all drivers in a state’s database. If there are states that won’t allow customs to have a large amount of information can, instead, allow the agency to “query their databases in real time for information on a traveler.” Currently Washington and Canada are going with the query-only approach.
Homeland Security wants to exempt the database from some provisions of the 1974 Privacy Act, including the right of a citizen to know whether a law enforcement or intelligence agency has requested his or her records and the right to sue for access and correction in those disclosures.
However, a traveler may request access to records based on documents he or she presented at the border.
