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SEC Bought a Billion Airline Records to Track Travelers—Likely Without a Warrant
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- DeepHorus
The Securities and Exchange Commission secretly purchased access to a global airline ticketing database containing more than one billion records, according to documents obtained by 404 Media through a Freedom of Information Act request. The data came from Airlines Reporting Corporation, a clearinghouse co-owned by American, Delta, and United that sits between carriers and travel agencies. It resold bookings made through sites like Expedia and Kayak.
The records held passengers' names, credit card numbers, departure and arrival cities, and flight numbers. The SEC's subscription also included an alert system that checked new bookings against a list of people it was monitoring, flagging travel from the prior 24 hours. The agency requested between one and 25 of these alerts per day. Notably, no court order was needed—the government simply bought the data, likely without a warrant.
The SEC is a financial regulator, not a spy agency, but the travel and payment trail it purchased is exactly the one crypto holders leave behind. A credit card tied to an exchange account, a flight to a conference, or a border crossing can connect a person to blockchain activity. When the state can watch both the chain and the boarding pass, the line between market cop and surveillance arm grows thin. This is especially relevant a year into the second Donald Trump presidency, as the SEC has pulled back from major crypto enforcement.
Critics call this the data broker loophole: buy what you can't subpoena. ARC's Travel Intelligence Program sold the same post-9/11 surveillance infrastructure to the FBI, IRS, and Homeland Security before pressure from lawmakers forced its shutdown in 2025. The newly released documents show its reach was wider than previously known, with foreign-to-foreign journeys sitting in the system alongside domestic ones.
ARC defended the program, telling 404 Media that it "was established after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks" and "has likely contributed to the prevention and apprehension of criminals involved in... money laundering" and terrorism. Money laundering is the charge crypto draws most often. However, privacy advocates argue that purchasing data without a warrant violates constitutional protections.
The IRS has been expanding its own surveillance of crypto investors through the same playbook, and the SEC's Coinbase probe of a year ago showed the same appetite for user data. The question is less whether the SEC wants the information than how it gets it. With ARC's program now shut down, agencies may turn to other data brokers or seek new legal authority. For now, the loophole highlights a growing tension between financial oversight and personal privacy.
