this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023

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[½ answered] Why do airlines share my itinerary with my bank? GDPR violation? Any travelers switching to cash? (links.hackliberty.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/125466

My credit card issuer apparently never gets to know what I purchased at stores, cafes, & restaurants -- and rightfully so. The statement just shows the shop name, location, and amount.

Exceptionally, if I purchase airfare the bank statement reveals disclosures:

airline who sold the ticket

carrier

passenger name

ticket number

city pairs

So that’s a disturbing over-share. In some cases the airline is a European flag carrier, so IIUC the GDPR applies, correct? Doesn’t this violate the data minimization principle?

Airlines no longer accept cash, which is also quite disturbing (and illegal in jurisdictions where legal tender must be accepted when presented for PoS transactions).

Has anyone switched to using a travel agent just to be able to pay cash for airfare?

UPDATE

A relatively convincing theory has been suggested in this other cross-posted community:

https://links.hackliberty.org/comment/414338

Apparently it’s because credit cards offer travel insurance & airlines have incentive to have another insurer involved. Would be useful if this were documented somewhere in a less refutable form.

GDPR question still outstanding.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Seconding the guess that it's so your card doesn't get frozen. If your bank knows you're meant to be in a specific place, they'll know transactions happening there aren't because someone's stolen your card. It would probably be a valid exception to GDPR on those grounds.

In fact, now you mention it, I'm guessing this is why my credit card company never raised any issue with me using the card in London a couple months ago, after buying train tickets to London on the same card. I thought that was odd, given they regularly ask me for 2FA on transactions that aren't unusual, but suddenly being halfway across the country wasn't flagged as being even remotely suspicious.

That said, I think the amount of information being given here does seem excessive. Just letting your bank know the destination and dates ought to be sufficient for security purposes. For data protection, it would be better if the airline said nothing, and your bank waited for you to tell them when and where you're travelling... but how many people would remember to do that?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but how many people would remember to do that?

Every single person who has traveled has been advised to do this. "People might forget" is no good reason to mandate sharing this data. It should be opt-in, and it's disgusting that it's not.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's been more than 15 years since I last travelled abroad, but I've now got a holiday booked next July. It genuinely hadn't occurred to me that I'd need to tell the bank I'm going, because I actually haven't received any advice to do so. It's not as common knowledge as you think it is. Thankfully, I'm now aware of the need to do so, so I will. But it's not in any of the confirmation emails for the tickets, nor on the government's travel advice pages (which I have checked, and started organising things like updating a couple of my vaccinations.)

Nevertheless, I agree it ought to be opt-in, rather than mandatory. Everybody should get to make the choice, even if it means occasionally they get stranded abroad with no access to money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, this just tells us we need to do a better job about educating people. Many of the conveniences we enjoy come at the expense of personal autonomy and privacy, and in my opinion it's never worth it.

I recently traveled to Canada by road trip, and when I called my bank's number I was surprised to learn that I don't need to report things like this. This actually disturbs me because it shows that they must have some way of collecting sufficient data to show that I am traveling to a specific place at a specific time, and in my opinion my bank has no business knowing this unless I choose to disclose it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think what annoys me most is that I have been trying to educate myself on what I need to do before I travel, and so much necessary information just isn't available in a logical place. Like why, for example, does my country's government's travel advice page have some information (check vaccinations are up to date) but not others (check bank knows where you're going)? Even for a decently intelligent person who proactively tries to educate themselves, it feels like a losing battle against poorly organised information.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Part of the problem is that government agencies can never keep something in place long enough to even determine if it's effective, so this is the type of situation that leads to

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If your bank knows you’re meant to be in a specific place, they’ll know transactions happening there aren’t because someone’s stolen your card.

Every bank’s AI-driven fraud detection system is different and non-transparent. Whenever my account gets frozen for “fraud” and I removed¹ at the bank over it, I ask WHY my account was frozen. The CSR guesses what happened (because apparently it’s such a secret the bank’s own staff is kept in the dark). This can be deceiving because bankers seem to be trained to propose their guesswork with confidence to thwart questions. I ask “where in my terms of service agreement does it say I shouldn’t do [whatever the CSR thinks triggered the fraud sensors] & how can I prevent this false positive in the future?” They can never answer that.

Some banks don’t require travel notices and some do. The banks that don’t: how are they finding out my travel plans when I buy the ticket using a different bank? Most likely their fraud algo is (or tries to be) smart enough to not need to track you.

It would probably be a valid exception to GDPR on those grounds.

How is sharing purchase info with banks within the bounds of the airline’s operational needs? The bank’s problem is not the airline’s problem.

(edit)

1: woah, slur filter did a silent hit-and-run on my post. The word “removed” should be some form of “complain” using a synonym that begins with a “b”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The AI-driven fraud detection system is probably more accurate when the other transactions on the account support the questioned transaction. If there's a bunch of transactions in a city/country you've never been to before, the fraud detection algorithm can come to two conclusions: either you have travelled there, or someone has cloned your card. If there's a transaction showing you bought tickets to that city/country for the same dates that transactions happen within that city/country, that's evidence to support one decision over the other on the algorithm's part.

The prevention of crime and fraud is a valid exception to GDPR, and it being the bank's problem entitles them to request the data from the airline/train company/whatever.

Like I said, I don't agree with the quantity of data being shared here, but let's face it, if you travel to another place and use your card there, then your bank are going to know you're there. If you use your card to buy foreign currency, they're going to know you're going to that country. So as a general principle, I don't think a travel company sharing the dates and destination really makes any difference.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

if you travel to another place and use your card there, then your bank are going to know you’re there.

That’s not the same bank that I bought my airfare with. The bank I use to buy the airfare with has no reason to know where I am. IIRC there’s a stat that on avg Americans have like ~15 or so different bank/credit cards. What you’re saying makes no sense. The airline takes the liberty of giving a travel notice to just one of your dozens of banks, and what about the rest?

If there’s a transaction showing you bought tickets to that city/country for the same dates that transactions happen within that city/country, that’s evidence to support one decision over the other on the algorithm’s part.

I often buy a one-way ticket with one card and a one-way return with another. So not even one bank has the full picture. I typically leave those cards at home as well because they have poor forex rates. Yet this doesn’t trip fraud sensors on the cards I carry to the destination. The fraud sensors are tripped when I forget my ATM limit or incorrectly adjust that limit for the foreign currency.

One bank that requires a travel notice doesn’t even accept that a trip would last more than 2 weeks. I call and say I will be gone 3 weeks, or 4 weeks, and they cannot handle it. They say “the travel notice will expire in 2 weeks so you have to call again when that time comes to renew your travel notice”. What I tell them directly carries more weight than whatever shows up on the transactions because they have no way of knowing what other travel arrangements I have. Yet what I tell them is not fully utilized.

The other problem with your theory is travel notices are a recent development of the past ~10—20 years, whereas itineraries have been shared with banks for as long as I can recall (~25+ years). Anyway, speculation isn’t cutting it. Solid info needed on why this is happening.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm finding your hostility towards me to be completely unnecessary. Unless there is someone here that works for a bank, you're not going to get a solid answer, only people's best guesses. I have offered you the most likely explanation. Getting angry at me for that is not in keeping with the rules of the Beehaw community.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reading this response, I'm compelled to ask

Do you want an answer or just a space to br angry and rant?

Do you have an answer in mind which you're looking for and will react with hostility to anything which doesn't fit with your expectations?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Do you want an answer or just a space to br angry and rant?

It’s all about getting an answer. Any rant that you think you sensed is at most an attempt to motivate a good answer.

I should also stress that I don’t want bad answers. The same broken speculation has been posted multiple times in this thread and in the parent. Thus compelling me to repeat the flaws in that bad answer.

I’m confident at this point that I finally got a viable answer: insurance. But I might be tempted to press for more details because it’s still unclear how the GDPR compliance pans out. GDPR violations are rampant these days, so it could lead to an article 77 complaint. I still have to do a bit of analysis on that from the insurance narrative.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Credit card purchases come with complimentary travel insurance, so it makes sense they'd share the travel details with the bank in charge of that insurance.

You most likely agreed to that disclosure both when signing for the card contract, the insurance contract, and the travel purchase.

As others said, the bank "could" also use the information to avoid blocking your card for potential fraud... but often that's a separate feature that you need to enable manually (default is to accept all payments).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The travel insurance sounds more plausible than the anti-fraud measure. I had not considered that. Although the question is how is that info sharing is arranged considering airline would not inherently care about my travel insurance or have a duty to inform my insurer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Airlines definitely care about your travel insurance: if your bag, or body (or a limb... the payout tables are kind of grim), get lost during flight, someone will have to pay for it. Airlines don't want to be the ones to pay, so they have their own insurance... but that insurer also doesn't want to be the one to pay, so they'll want to have your bank-card's insurer's information, who in turn will require your travel information in order to accept issuing the insurance (likely will reject it on travels to select countries)... and that's how the information gets shared all the way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That’s all plausible. But in the end the airline (their insurance) will be the loser, no?

When a traveler has insurance they have some reassurance & comfort that the loss won’t be theirs as they will file a claim. In my cases of lost luggage, the rules of the traveler’s insurance claim required me to still file a claim with the airline. The airline seemed to have the primary liability. Wouldn’t it be bizarre if the airline (who caused the loss) would get off the hook? My insurance just ensured I was compensated one way or another so long as I followed the rules and reported the loss to the airline. From there, wouldn’t my insurance work in their own interest to ensure the airline pays out? Surely my insurance must only be liable for benefits coverage that exceed the airline’s responsibility (depending on how generous my policy is).

Since an insurance company has the resources and legal muscle to ensure the responsible company pays out, I would expect it to /not/ be in the airline’s interest to deal with another insurance company over a loss. Just about every time I had a loss without insurance, the airline was directly liable to me but they told me to pound sand. Every time IIRC. They wouldn’t get away with that against another insurer.

Most of my cards are free with lousy policies that only pay out if I lose a limb or something like that. It was only when I paid for extra insurance that I got coverage that was useful.

In any case, if you are correct, that implies if I get a payment card with zero insurance (a prepaid card?), then the flight details won’t be shared, correct? Might be interesting to test that, but tricky because prepaid cards often don’t issue a statement.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Airlines never pay, that's what they have insurance for 😉

The way it works, commercial air travel is highly regulated, with lots of laws regarding both safety and consumer rights. Airlines don't risk having to pay for breaching any of it, instead they find an insurance company that will asses the company, estimate the chance of certain breaches happening, run their numbers... and gamble on asking the airline to pay a fee that they expect to be higher than what they expect to pay out the airline for its failures.

When you put a claim against an airline, they'll send you away just so their insurer doesn't raise their insurance payments. If you sue them, and win... the airline still won't pay, it will most likely be the airline's insurer (unless the airline loses their claim for the insurer to cover the costs of paying you, but that would be rare and kind of neglectful on the airline's part).

When you pitch your own insurance company against an airline, it's really going to talk to the airline's insurance company, if they aren't the same company to begin with... and as luck would have it, both insurers don't make their profits on whether they pay your claim or not (unless it's something really egregious), but on raising the regular payments for the airline and your bank, so they're very likely to just grant your claim and raise their fees.

if I get a payment card with zero insurance (a prepaid card?), then the flight details won’t be shared, correct?

That's... a resounding "maybe".

Prepaid cards come in more kinds than banks issuing them; some are linked to a main account, some are separate entities, some have a per-card account... with a physical version, virtual, virtual physical, "print your own from a PDF" (not joking)... VISA, MasterCard... with all kind of paybacks, premiums, and whatnot... all depending on the given card's contract, payment processor's contract, general account conditions, general bank conditions. Some come with insurance from the bank, some from the payment processor, some don't... but even then, the bank may or may not request or get your travel details, maybe as a "standard procedure".

And some do offer online statements... and sometimes the statements appear as a pre-statememt, then get completed with more and more data some days later.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is only a guess (and Still overreaching) but maybe so your card / account isn’t frozen due to unusual location?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s been suggested in the parent thread and another crosspost. It’s the most popular answer but I don’t buy it.

Why would the airline risk the liability of excessive oversharing of personal data for no benefit in return? Is the bank giving them a reduced transaction fee for sharing that data?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Remember that this community is a niche audience. Most people would probably find this convenient; you know easily which flight it is.

Everything here is just speculation, but if you want one more: Airlines and travellers are early adopters of credit card payments. Some people use credit cards only for travel. It does make sense that the industry has better integration than your corner store.