At this point, most Americans are aware that their personal information is often up for sale. But few would have expected their domestic flight records to be part of the trade. 

You might think that when you book a flight, the data stays between you, the airline and perhaps your travel agency, but a new report suggests otherwise. Internal documents reveal that major U.S. airlines have been funneling detailed passenger data to a little-known broker, which then sells that information directly to the Department of Homeland Security. 

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Which airlines shared data and how the travel intelligence program works

At the center of the controversy is the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a company jointly owned by several of the largest U.S. airlines, including Delta, American Airlines and United. ARC’s core business includes managing ticket settlements between airlines and travel agencies. However, under a lesser-known initiative called the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP), ARC collects and monetizes vast amounts of data from domestic flight bookings. This includes names, complete itineraries and payment details.

Internal government records and procurement documents reveal that Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, has purchased access to ARC’s TIP data to track individuals of interest across the U.S. While CBP maintains that this data supports criminal and administrative investigations, critics argue that the arrangement raises major privacy concerns. 

The data is shared without travelers’ knowledge or consent, and ARC reportedly requested that the agency keep its identity confidential unless legally required to disclose it.

The documents confirm that CBP’s initial contract with ARC began in June 2024. It has already been extended and may continue through 2029. Although the initial amounts seem modest, around $11,000 with a recent $6,800 update, the implications are far-reaching.

What DHS is collecting from your flight bookings and why it’s concerning

ARC’s Travel Intelligence Program goes far beyond basic passenger manifests. It includes over a billion records spanning both past and future travel, updated daily. The system can be queried by name, credit card or even travel agency. Importantly, it does not include data from tickets purchased directly through airline websites, focusing instead on bookings made via travel agencies, such as Expedia.

The DHS has justified its use of TIP data in a public Privacy Impact Assessment, noting the program helps in active investigations. CBP echoed this, stating that data is only used when a case is already open. Still, this sets a dangerous precedent. It normalizes mass surveillance through third-party data purchases, undermining safeguards designed to limit unnecessary intrusion.

This isn’t an isolated incident. Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also acknowledged purchasing ARC data. Other federal agencies listed in procurement records include the Secret Service, SEC, DEA, TSA and even the Air Force.

6 ways you can protect your privacy from data brokers

If you want to take back control of your personal information, here are six smart steps you can take right now to reduce your exposure to data brokers.

Whenever you can, avoid using third-party travel sites like Expedia, Orbitz or travel agencies. These platforms are the main sources of the data collected by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) through its Travel Intelligence Program. When you book directly on an airline’s official website or mobile app, your data is far less likely to be shared with ARC or sold to government agencies. While it might be tempting to look for deals on aggregator sites, once you find a fare you like, try to book it directly through the airline.

The ARC system allows queries by credit card number, which means your travel activity can be tracked even if your name is not directly searched. To protect yourself, consider using a virtual credit card or a disposable card number for flight bookings. These are often available through banking apps or fintech services like Revolut, Privacy.com or certain American Express accounts. Virtual cards are tied to your main account but generate a temporary number that can only be used once or at a specific merchant. This makes it much harder for brokers to link future bookings to you.

Be cautious about the personal information you enter during the booking process. Unless it is legally required, avoid adding unnecessary details like your frequent flyer number, passport data for domestic flights or secondary phone numbers. You can also create a separate email address specifically for travel bookings to reduce the risk of cross-linking data with your other online accounts. When it comes to loyalty programs, consider opting out or using a separate identity if you are concerned about data being shared across companies.

The most effective way to take control of your data and avoid data brokers from selling it is to opt for data removal services. While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of removing your information from hundreds of sites continuously over a longer period of time. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com/Delete

Prevent tracking at the source by using privacy-first tools. Switch to browsers like Brave, Firefox or DuckDuckGo, which block ads and data collectors by default. Set up a separate, secure alias email address for booking travel using services. This limits how easily brokers can link your travel data to your online identity. See my review of the best secure and private email services by visitingCyberguy.com/Mail

If your travel or payment data is ever leaked or abused, freezing your credit can help prevent identity theft. Identity theft companies can assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals. They can also monitor personal information like your Social Security number, phone number and email address and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account. 

One of the best parts of my No. 1 pick is that is it has identity theft insurance of  and a white glove fraud resolution team where a . See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft by visiting Cyberguy.com/IdentityTheft 

Kurt’s key takeaway

The ARC incident is yet another example of federal agencies bypassing traditional legal channels by buying sensitive data from private firms. Travelers are not just passengers, they are data points in a growing ecosystem where information is currency. The fact that this trade happened without informed consent and behind legal smokescreens should worry anyone who values privacy.

Would you change how you book flights if it meant protecting your personal data? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

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President Donald Trump’s administration released its annual report revealing the salaries for every staffer inside the White House on Thursday.

The report shows employees’ earnings in a range of $59,070 at the lowest to $225,700 at the highest, though a few aren’t accepting salaries at all.

The top-paid staffer at the White House is Jacalynne Klopp, a senior advisor and the sole staffer earning $225,700. Behind her is Edgar Mkrtchian, an associate counsel, making $203,645.

Behind them comes a group of 33 staffers making $195,200, which includes many well-known names. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt takes in this level of salary, as does border czar Tom Homan, chief of staff Susan Wiles, trade advisor Peter Navarro, communications director Steven Cheung and police chief of staff and homeland security advisor Stephen Miller.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

According to the report, there are 108 employees who make between $59,000 and $80,000, while Trump’s speechwriters earn between $92,500 and $121,500.

Eight employees do not receive salaries at all, though some of those are due to overlapping roles in other sections of government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is chief among these, not receiving any compensation for his White House role as national security advisor. Special envoy Steve Witkoff also receives compensation from the State Department rather than the White House.

Trump’s own compensation is not listed in the report, but the pay scheme for the president is laid out in federal law. As president, Trump earns a base salary of $400,000, as well as a $50,000 expense allowance, $100,000 for travel and $19,000 for entertainment.

Trump donated his salary to government agencies during his first term in office and said he will do the same during his second term.

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about Trump’s compensation.

The House of Representatives’ progress on President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ has temporarily come to a screeching halt thanks to the chamber’s top Democrat.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., began speaking in the chamber minutes before 5 a.m. and appears to be poised for hours more.

One GOP lawmaker told Fox News Digital that Jeffries was seen arriving with multiple binders, one of which he read from for roughly three hours. If the rest of the binders also hold portions of his speech, the New York Democrat could keep the House floor paused into the afternoon.

He’s able to command the House floor via a ‘magic minute,’ a privilege for party leaders in the chamber that allows them to speak for however long they want.

It comes after the House of Representatives voted to advance Trump’s $3.3 trillion ‘big, beautiful bill’ to its final phase in Congress, overcoming fears of a potential Republican mutiny.

It’s a significant victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., though the fight is not over yet.

Lawmakers voted to proceed with debate on the mammoth-sized Trump agenda bill in the early hours of Thursday – a mechanism known as a ‘rule vote’ – teeing up a final House-wide vote sometime later Thursday morning.

The House adopted the rules for debate on the measure in a dramatic 219 to 213 vote – with all but moderate Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., voting to proceed.

Next comes a vote on the actual measure, likely sometime on Thursday.

But the timing is largely contingent on when Jeffries finishes speaking. 

‘I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this House floor and take my sweet time,’ he said at one point.

The first part of Jeffries’ speech saw him read from a binder that he said contained accounts of people who could lose their Medicaid coverage under the GOP bill, taken from residents of states with Republican lawmakers.

‘This Congress is on the verge of ripping food out of the mouths of children, veterans and seniors as a result of this one big ugly bill in order to reward billionaires with massive tax breaks and exploding the debt in the process,’ he said at one point.

Jeffries called it ‘one big, ugly bill’ that ‘our Republican colleagues are trying to jam down the throats of the American people will undermine their quality of life.’

The budget reconciliation process, which Republicans are using to pass the bill, is a mechanism that allows the party in power to completely sideline the minority in most cases. 

That means Jeffries nor his caucus have no real power to stop the bill from moving forward, making delay tactics their only tangible form of opposition right now.

The vote had been stalled for hours, since Wednesday afternoon, with five House Republicans poised to kill the measure before lawmakers could weigh the bill itself.

Several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies, meanwhile, appeared ready to skip the vote altogether in protest of GOP leaders’ compromise bill.

But both Johnson and Trump spent hours negotiating with holdouts, apparently to some success.

But the process could still take hours. Democrats could still call up various procedural votes to delay the final measure, as they did when the legislation passed the House by just one vote for the first time in late May.

Plus, the bill itself could still face opposition from both moderates and conservative Republicans.

Conservative lawmakers were threatening to derail the rule vote as recently as Wednesday over changes the Senate made to the legislation, which fiscal hawks argued would add billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

But those concerns appear to have been outweighed by pressure from House GOP leaders and the president himself – who urged House Republicans to coalesce around the bill.

The Senate passed its version of the bill late on Tuesday morning, making modifications to the House’s provisions on Medicaid cost-sharing with states, some tax measures, and raising the debt ceiling.

Moderates are wary of Senate measures that would shift more Medicaid costs to states that expanded their programs under Obamacare, while conservatives have said those cuts are not enough to offset the additional spending in other parts of the bill.

Two members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who also sit on the House Rules Committee, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, voted against the measure during the Rules Committee’s 12-hour hearing to consider the bill.

Johnson himself publicly urged the Senate to change as little as possible in the run-up to the vote. But the upper chamber’s bill ultimately passed by a similarly narrow margin as the House – with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.

‘I’m not happy with what the Senate did to our product,’ Johnson told reporters late on Tuesday afternoon. ‘We understand this is a process that goes back and forth, and we’ll be working to get all of our members to yes.’

But Trump took to Truth Social after the Senate passed the bill to urge House Republicans to do the same.

‘It is no longer a ‘House Bill’ or a ‘Senate Bill’. It is everyone’s Bill. There is so much to be proud of, and EVERYONE got a major Policy WIN — But, the Biggest Winner of them all will be the American People, who will have Permanently Lower Taxes, Higher Wages and Take Home Pay, Secure Borders, and a Stronger and More Powerful Military,’ the president posted.

‘We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional ‘GRANDSTANDERS (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk. We are on schedule — Let’s keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4thvacation. The American People need and deserve it. They sent us here to, GET IT DONE.’

Both the House and Senate have been dealing with razor-thin GOP majorities of just three votes each.

The bill would permanently extend the income tax brackets lowered by Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), while temporarily adding new tax deductions to eliminate duties on tipped and overtime wages up to certain caps.

It also includes a new tax deduction for people aged 65 and over.

The legislation also rolls back green energy tax credits implemented under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump and his allies have attacked as ‘the Green New Scam.’

The bill would also surge money toward the national defense, and to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the name of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The bill would also raise the debt limit by $5 trillion in order to avoid a potentially economically devastating credit default sometime this summer, if the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its obligations.

New and expanded work requirements would be implemented for Medicaid and federal food assistance, respectively.

Democrats have blasted the bill as a tax giveaway to the wealthy while cutting federal benefits for working-class Americans.

But Republicans have said their tax provisions are targeted toward the working and middle classes – citing measures eliminating taxes on tipped and overtime wages – while arguing they were reforming federal welfare programs to work better for those who truly need them.

Progressive Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., told reporters it was Democrats’ intent to delay proceedings on Wednesday for as long as possible.

‘This last go around, we were able to delay the bill upwards of 30 hours. And so we’re going to do the same thing, do everything we can from a procedural point of view to delay this,’ Frost said.

Meanwhile, there were earlier concerns about if weather delays in Washington could delay lawmakers from getting to Capitol Hill in time for the planned vote.

‘We’re monitoring the weather closely,’ Johnson told reporters. ‘There’s a lot of delays right now.’

Fox News’ Dan Scully contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump’s administration released its annual report revealing the salaries for every staffer inside the White House on Thursday.

The report shows employees’ earnings in a range of $59,070 at the lowest to $225,700 at the highest, though a few aren’t accepting salaries at all.

The top-paid staffer at the White House is Jacalynne Klopp, a senior adviser and the sole staffer earning $225,700. Behind her is Edgar Mkrtchian, an associate counsel making $203,645.

Behind them comes a group of 33 staffers making $195,200, which includes many well-known names. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt takes in this level of salary, as does border czar Tom Homan, chief of staff Susan Wiles, trade adviser Peter Navarro, communications director Steven Cheung, and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

According to the report, there are 108 employees who make between $59,000 and $80,000, while Trump’s speechwriters earn between $92,500 and $121,500.

Eight employees do not receive salaries at all, though some of those are due to overlapping roles in other sections of government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is chief among these, not receiving any compensation for his White House role as national security adviser. Special envoy Steve Witkoff also receives compensation from the state department rather than the White House.

Trump’s own compensation is not listed in the report, but the pay scheme for the president is laid out in federal law. As president, Trump earns a base salary of $400,000, as well as a $50,000 expense allowance, $100,000 for travel, and $19,000 for entertainment.

Trump donated his salary to government agencies during his first term in office, but he has not clarified whether he will do the same during his second term.

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about Trump’s compensation.

Read the full list of White House salaries below (App users click here)

President Donald Trump’s $3.3 trillion ‘big, beautiful bill’ has reportedly set the House record for the longest vote in the history of the lower chamber of Congress. 

The procedural vote on the Senate-amended version of the bill lasted for more than seven hours. In 2021, the House spent seven hours and six minutes voting on former President Joe Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ legislative package. 

Wednesday night’s voting surpassed the previous record at 9:15 p.m. ET Wednesday by at least 15 minutes, according to Axios.

Assistant House Minority Leader Joe Neguse, D-Colo., goaded House Republicans by claiming the protracted voting period Wednesday violated House rules, Axios reported. 

The extended voting period came as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrangled with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. They pushed back on the Senate’s version of the megabill over its projected increase to the federal deficit, as well as what they deemed insufficient Medicaid reforms and spending cuts. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, took issue with Senate revisions reintroducing green energy tax credits despite House efforts to roll back such programs. 

With the Democrats united in opposition, the future of the more than 800-page, Trump-backed legislative package depends on a handful of GOP holdouts. 

Following the overnight session, Johnson said Thursday he was determined to get the Senate-amended bill passed by the House and to the president’s desk by the Independence Day deadline on Friday. 

Lawmakers voted to proceed with debate on the Trump agenda bill in the early hours of Thursday – a mechanism known as a ‘rule vote’ – teeing up a final House-wide vote sometime later Thursday morning.

Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that beyond the House Freedom Caucus, some moderate Republicans also have final questions about how the megabill would be implemented. 

‘Some of them wanted to talk to some of the different agencies about, you know, how they’re planning on implementing it, which obviously the agency heads have been planning for months on these changes,’ Scalise said. ‘So they walk through those things and that was helpful to members just to at least get a good idea of what to expect once the bill becomes law. Of course, none of it happens if the bill doesn’t become law. So the focus has always been, let’s get this bill passed.’ 

The Senate passed the ‘big, beautiful bill’ by a razor-thin, 51-50 margin last week, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. 

Fox News’ Liz Elkind and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.