SEC bought airline ticket database access, likely without warrant

The Securities and Exchange Commission purchased access to the Airlines Reporting Corporation’s Travel Intelligence Program, a global ticketing database holding more than 1 billion records. The subscription included an alert function that compared new bookings against watch lists and flagged travel in the prior 24 hours, documents show.

The records in the database included passenger names, the credit cards used to buy tickets, departure and arrival cities, flight numbers and routes. The data came from bookings made through travel agencies, airline reservation systems and online platforms and covered domestic and foreign-to-foreign itineraries.

Documents show the SEC requested between one and 25 automated alerts per day. No court order or subpoena was required for the agency to subscribe to the service, and records indicate the subscription likely proceeded without a warrant.

Airlines Reporting Corporation, a clearinghouse co-owned by Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines, maintained the Travel Intelligence Program as a product developed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The company previously sold access to other federal agencies, and the program was discontinued in 2025 after lawmakers raised concerns about the sale of ticketing data.

The SEC is the federal regulator responsible for enforcing securities laws, including investigations of insider trading, market manipulation and other financial misconduct. The travel and payment information available in the ARC database can be used to link credit-card transactions and travel patterns to financial activity. Regulators have sought similar commercial data in probes of digital-asset companies and other market-related inquiries.

In response to inquiries, ARC characterized the program as established after the September 11 attacks and said it had likely contributed to the prevention and apprehension of criminals involved in money laundering and terrorism. The records and the alert function allowed agencies to monitor booking activity without issuing demands directly to airlines or travel agencies, according to the documents released after the program’s closure.