If it had the political nerve, the Transportation Security Administration could guarantee air safety by collecting passenger information from public and private databases, industry executives said at a recent Washington forum sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government. . .
If it had the political nerve, the Transportation Security Administration could guarantee air safety by collecting passenger information from public and private databases, industry executives said at a recent Washington forum sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government.

"It"s not a technology problem, it"s a problem of political will ... what we are willing to give up" in exchange for greater security, said Steve Perkins, senior vice president for public-sector business at Oracle Corp.

Oracle formed the Liberty Alliance with Electronic Data Systems Corp., PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. of New York and Sun Microsystems Inc. to sell the database-mining idea to the government. Their emphasis is on hardware and software integration, not privacy or data security.

"Our goal is to push the bounds of the technology," Perkins said. "I don't see a role for the alliance on the policy side."

Government officials, however, said privacy and security policies require industry participation.

The link for this article located at GCN is no longer available.