Passport verification unavailable amid outage
A system used to verify passport document data for agencies that issue driver's licenses and identification cards was unavailable Wednesday amid an outage, according to a transportation group.
The U.S. Passport Verification Service provides a means for driver license agencies (DLAs) to verify that data against the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) back-end systems, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). The organization, per its website, represents state, provincial and territorial officials in the U.S. 'who administer and enforce motor vehicle laws.'
AAMVA told NewsNation, a sister network of The Hill, that the lapse in service was on the DHS side 'due to their activity,' without disclosing more details.
'We are actively working with our DHS partners to provide an update to states so service can be restored as soon as possible,' the group wrote, saying the department aimed to have it restored by 1 p.m. EDT. It is unclear where systems currently stand.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (D) also posted about the outage on social media.
'Due to a nationwide outage, U.S. passport verification is currently unavailable. We are actively monitoring the situation and will provide updates as they become available.,' Giannoulias wrote Wednesday morning on the social platform X.
'Please call 800-252-8980 before visiting our DMVs as services or hours may be impacted,' he added.
The reported outage comes after the deadline to obtain a REAL ID passed last week following years of delays.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said recently that over 80 percent of air travelers were already presenting types of identification in line with Real ID requirements.
The Hill has reached out to DHS for confirmation on the outage.
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Politico
a day ago
- Politico
Why the U.S. government is touting tourism in Afghanistan
Presented by Housing For US HAPPY TRAILS — If you haven't made summer plans yet, here's an idea: Have you considered Afghanistan? The State Department strongly advises against travel for Americans but the Department of Homeland Security has determined that conditions are on the upswing in the perennially war-torn country — and that even tourism is starting to come back. 'Tourists are sharing their experiences on social media, highlighting the peaceful countryside, welcoming locals, and the cultural heritage, according to some reports,' DHS said. The rosy observation appears in a recent DHS notification in the Federal Register, announcing the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for about 12,000 Afghans who have taken refuge in the U.S., part of the Trump administration's larger effort to dismantle refugee programs and remove non-citizens from the country. In a finding that has confounded experts and advocates, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem determined that there have been 'notable improvements' in the security and economy of Afghanistan such that refugees would not be in imminent danger upon their return. Afghanistan used to be a popular draw for foreign backpackers, part of the famed 'Hippy Trail.' That ended with the Soviet invasion in 1979, which ushered in nearly 40 years of conflict. By some measures, the country is indeed experiencing a period of relative calm compared to more recent years. That's because the U.S. is no longer at war with the Taliban thanks to a peace deal signed during President Donald Trump's first term and a chaotic American withdrawal completed under President Joe Biden. The White House still has a hostile view of the Taliban government, including Afghanistan on a list of 19 countries whose citizens are now banned or restricted from entering the U.S. under an executive order that took effect Monday. 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WIRED
2 days ago
- WIRED
Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS
Jun 10, 2025 9:00 AM A contract obtained by 404 Media shows that an airline-owned data broker forbids the feds from revealing it sold them detailed passenger data. Planes sit on the tarmac at Newark Liberty International Airport on June 02, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey. Photograph:A data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected US travelers' domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details. This article was created in partnership with 404 Media, a journalist-owned publication covering how technology impacts humans. For more stories like this, sign up here. CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest's air travel across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts. The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least one part of DHS purchased such information, and comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailed its own purchase of the data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from. 'The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans' sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,' senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major US airlines, other publicly released documents show. The company's board of directors include representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada's Air Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on ARC for ticket settlement services. ARC's other lines of business include being the conduit between airlines and travel agencies, finding travel trends in data with other firms like Expedia, and fraud prevention, according to material on ARC's YouTube channel and website. The sale of US fliers' travel information to the government is part of ARC's Travel Intelligence Program (TIP). A Statement of Work included in the newly obtained documents, which describes why an agency is buying a particular tool or capability, says CBP needs access to ARC's TIP product 'to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest's US domestic air travel ticketing information.' 404 Media obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The new documents obtained by 404 Media also show ARC asking CBP to 'not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.' The Statement of Work says that TIP can show a person's paid intent to travel and tickets purchased through travel agencies in the US and its territories. The data from the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) will provide 'visibility on a subject's or person of interest's domestic air travel ticketing information as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories,' the documents say. They add that this data will be 'crucial' in both administrative and criminal cases. A DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) available online says that TIP data is updated daily with the previous day's ticket sales, and contains more than one billion records spanning 39 months of past and future travel. The document says TIP can be searched by name, credit card, or airline, but ARC contains data from ARC-accredited travel agencies, such as Expedia, and not flights booked directly with an airline. 'If the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, then the search done by ICE will not show up in an ARC report,' that PIA says. The PIA notes that the data impacts both US and non-US persons, meaning it does include information on US citizens. 'While obtaining domestic airline data—like many other transaction and purchase records—generally doesn't require a warrant, there's still supposed to go through a legal process that ensures independent oversight and limits data collection to records that will support an investigation,' Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media in an email. 'As with many other types of sensitive and revealing data, the government seems intent on using data brokers to buy their way around important guardrails and limits.' CBP's contract with ARC started in June 2024 and may extend to 2029, according to the documents. The CBP contract 404 Media obtained documents for was an $11,025 transaction. Last Tuesday, a public procurement database added a $6,847.50 update to that contract, which said it was exercising 'Option Year 1,' meaning it was extending the contract. The documents are redacted but briefly mention CBP's OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees. 'CBP is committed to protecting individuals' privacy during the execution of its mission to protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation's economic prosperity. CBP follows a robust privacy policy as we protect the homeland through the air, land and maritime environments against illegal entry, illicit activity or other threats to national sovereignty and economic security,' a CBP spokesperson said in a statement. CBP added that the data is only used when an OPR investigation is open, and the agency needs to locate someone related to that investigation. The agency says the data can act as a good starting point to identify a relevant flight record before then getting more information through legal processes. On May 1, ICE published details about its own ARC data purchase. In response, on May 2, 404 Media filed FOIA requests with ICE and a range of other agencies that 404 Media found had bought ARC's services, including CBP, the Secret Service, SEC, DEA, the Air Force, US Marshals Service, TSA, and ATF. 404 Media found these by searching US procurement databases. Around a week later, The Lever covered the ICE contract. Airlines contacted by 404 Media declined to comment, didn't respond, or deferred to either ARC or DHS instead. ARC declined to comment. The company previously told The Lever that TIP 'was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data to law enforcement … for the purpose of national security matters' and criminal investigations. 'ARC has refused to answer oversight questions from Congress, so I have already contacted the major airlines that own ARC—like Delta, American Airlines, and United—to find out why they gave the green light to sell their customers' data to the government,' Wyden's statement added. US law enforcement agencies have repeatedly turned to private companies to buy data rather than obtain it through legal processes such as search warrants or subpoenas. That includes location data harvested from smartphones, utility data, and internet backbone data. 'Overall it strikes me as yet another alarming example of how the 'Big Data Surveillance Complex' is becoming the digital-age version of the military-industrial complex,' Laperruque says, referring to the purchase of airline data. 'It's clear the data broker loophole is pushing the government back towards a pernicious 'collect it all' mentality, gobbling up as much sensitive data as it can about all Americans by default. A decade ago the public rejected that approach, and Congress passed surveillance reform legislation that banned domestic bulk collection. Clearly it's time for Congress to step in again, and stop the data broker loophole from being used to circumvent that ban,' he added. According to ARC's website, the company only introduced multifactor authentication on May 15.
Axios
2 days ago
- Axios
Nearly half of Texans don't have passports
About 45% of Texans who are U.S. citizens don't have a valid passport as of 2024, per estimates from the think tank Center for American Progress. Why it matters: A valid passport is one of the few forms of accepted identification for international travel — and it's also required for domestic air travel if you don't have a Real ID. By the numbers: Of the roughly 27 million U.S. citizens living in Texas, 12 million are currently without a valid passport — a gap that could create headaches for domestic travelers and limit mobility abroad.
