Quiz

Question 5

Have you ever bought plane tickets for travel within the United States?

Because you bought plane tickets

As soon as you buy an airplane ticket, your reservation and itinerary are available to government entities including DHS.

This provides DHS access to your full name, timestamped IP address, credit card number, flight schedule, and email address. Your “Passenger Name Record” (PNR)Opens in new tab may also include:

  • information about your past and present travel companions;
  • your emergency contacts;
  • organizational affiliations;
  • your employer;
  • your lodging details;
  • any meal requests; and 
  • notes from Customs and Border Protection officers who checked your ID at a national border.

DHS data tools mine PNRs looking for patterns to predict “risk” and “identify abnormalities in travel patterns.”

Some data systems that use PNR data include:

To see what databases would track you if your answer had been no, click the no button.

If you've crossed through the US border

Even if you haven’t traveled by airplane, chances are you have crossed over a U.S. border at some time. Maybe you were in a car, bus, on a boat, or on foot.

If you passed through a U.S. border checkpoint, you have a “permanent record” on file that details your journey and identity.

Some data systems you might have encountered include Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS)Opens in new tab and TECS/ICMOpens in new tab.

To see what databases would track you if your answer had been yes, click the yes button.

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Of the 13 monsters in this quiz, it looks like your data may be tracked by the following:

But there may be other smaller surveillance databases not covered in the quiz.

You may be asking yourself "What can we do?".

What now?

To learn more, check out the full From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition Report.

Learn how you can Take Action

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More about this quiz

There is no single database that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can consult to find a list of everyone they are able to deport.

As a workaround, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cross-checks many existing datasets. They use information from international visitors, visa holders, and arrest and conviction records. These datasets are not always reliable  at determining legal status. They are also deeply flawed, racist, and xenophobic.

More and more, DHS buys data from corporations to supplement their own databases. They can buy archives of location history, face and voice recognition files, and iris scans. Artificial intelligence tools use this data to predict behavior and infer relationships between people, places, and objects (like vehicles).

We spent months researching databases and data-sharing. But contractors and technologies change all the time, and many government data systems are shrouded in secrecy. We do not claim that the databases listed here make up a complete list, nor is it possible to make that list. Rather, we hope that this tool hints at the tangled and complex web of data extraction and criminalization.

The fight against migrant exploitation, racist border securitization, and deportation is a fight against data criminalization. It is a fight for collective self-determination and data liberation. Read more in our full report.