The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bought access to what it described as more than a billion airline ticketing records, related to not just U.S. domestic flights or those landing in the country, but also flights between foreign countries, according to SEC documents obtained by 404 Media. A group of the worldās airlines, including Delta, United, and American, previously sold the data under the company name ARC; that is where the SEC bought the data from.
ARC, or the Airlines Reporting Corporation, stopped selling airline ticketing records after repeated coverage from 404 Media and pressure from lawmakers last year. But the newly obtained records provide additional insight into the breadth of data that airlines were selling without their customers' knowledge, and that law enforcement agencies were tapping into, likely without a warrant.