The Saber travel agency has millions of pieces of data that form the basis of hotel reservations, flights and hotel room services. It's through this kind of business that we can compare airline ticket prices in real time to get the cheapest possible. Saber is working with the FBI to enable them to monitor suspects. This is legal thanks to a law dating from the 18th century.
The FBI reportedly asked Saber to conduct extensive, "real-time" surveillance of an Indian fugitive, Deepanshu Kher, for more than six months. The company had to follow everything he did. This obviously included any trips he could take, financial transactions, or hotel reservations. Deepanshu Kher was finally arrested in January 2020. He is now in prison.
What about the All Writs Act?
In fact, Saber isn't the only travel company to collaborate with the FBI. There are others like Britain's Travelport. With Saber the FBI works a lot. We know, for example, that the company helped the United States reconstruct the course of the 9/11 terrorists after their attack. In this particular case it's not shocking, but knowing that the FBI can hunt down suspects is a bit annoying.
It is thanks to the All Writs Act of 1789 that the FBI can do this legally. This text clearly says that the feds can force companies to collaborate. Sometimes the company is even silenced, making it difficult to understand precisely how our personal data can be used. Yet we do know that a company like Saber is handling a lot of data. If the intentions of the federal services are probably good, this old piece of legislation and the lack of transparency in the data collected could cause a lot of questions
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://blog.economie-numerique.net/2020/08/23/how-the-fbi-uses-a-reservation-firm-monitor-to-travelers/