US Airlines to ask for more passenger info

Airline passengers soon will be asked to provide their full names and birth dates when they buy tickets, under a new regulation of the Transportation Security Administration.

Passengers do not have to provide it, though if they don´t, there´s a better chance they´ll have to undergo more stringent screening at the airport, Justin Oberman, the TSA official in charge of the program, said.

Oberman said having passengers´ full names and birth dates will make it less likely that they´ll be confused with people who are known or suspected terrorists.

Such confusion has brought the TSA much criticism. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is among those whose name matched someone on a watch list.

The request for extra information is part of the TSA´s effort to build a new computerized passenger screening program, called Secure Flight.

Secure Flight would allow the TSA to take over from the airlines the responsibility of checking passengers´ names against the watch lists. The TSA plans to begin Secure Flight with two airlines in August.

The program is supposed to work by transferring airline passengers´ name records — which can include address, phone number and credit card information — to a government database. The government computer would flag names on the watch list and identify passengers who would be asked to go through additional screening, according to a report on Travel Weekly magazine.