Your travel records tell the government your IP, email, credit card, call center notes

Have you ever been curious as to what information the government has stored about you and your travel records? A Passenger Name Record (PNR) is a computerized travel record created by airlines or travel agencies for both domestic and international flights, as well as hotel bookings, car rentals, cruises, and train trips. Your PNR, which is given to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) if you travel internationally, can include details like your unredacted credit card number or IP addresses. As Ars Technica’s Cyrus Farivar found out, your PNR is just another example of the government’s “collect it all” mentality.

Farivar submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to CBP for his PNR; he was eventually given 76 pages of data covering his travel from 2005 to 2013. He said his PNRs included “every mailing address, e-mail, and phone number” he ever used, as well as some PNRs listing the IP address he used when buying the ticket, his full credit card number stored in the clear, and notes jotted down by airline call center employees “even for something as minor as a seat change.”