WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. government is expanding its tracking and data-collection procedures for U.S. citizens who travel internationally and intends to maintain any data collected for 15 years. The information may be used not only to investigate suspected terrorist activities, narco-trafficking and child pornography, but also in other criminal and intelligence matters. In addition, it may be shared with foreign governments and agencies and in some civil matters.The new program, called the Border Crossing Information System, expands data collection to land-based travelers, who comprise about 75-percent of all border crossers. Airline passengers have been subjected to data collection for a number of years.

BCIS has been in operation since early this year but only was revealed in a Federal Register notice posted in July. The Department of Homeland Security said the program is part of a larger effort to define and defend against terrorist threats.

According to the Federal Register notice, BCIS was authorized by the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Like other recent innovations sprouting from DHS, BCIS is designed to be exempt from Privacy Act restrictions.

The program relies on machine-readable identification like passports and driver licenses that contain radio frequency ID chips. All documents used for identification at border checkpoints must be machine-readable by June 2009, by federal mandate. The system stores name, birth date, gender, date and time of crossing, and a photo.

“History has shown, whether you are talking about criminal or terrorist activity, that plotting, planning or even relationships among conspirators can go on for years,” DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told The Washington Post in defense of the system. “Basic travel records can, quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots.”

Critics lambaste BCIS as yet another invasion into Americans’ privacy — one in a long line of unprecedented privacy and data-gathering assaults in the name of national security, a favorite rallying point for the Bush administration.

“This database is, in a sense, worse than a watch list,” Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told the Post. “At least in the watch-list scenario, there’s some reason why the name got on the list. Here, the only thing a person does to come to the attention of DHS is to lawfully cross the border. The theory of this data collection is: Track everyone — just in case.”

Part of the concern about BCIS is that DHS and other federal, state and local agencies could mine the collected data for information that may not be suspicious or relevant to ongoing investigations. In addition, the data could be combined with information in other government databases and used to make connections or establish patterns that don’t really exist — a phenomenon known as “data creep.” DHS denies it will mine the data, but according to the Homeland Security Act that established the department, DHS is required to develop sophisticated data-mining tools to enhance its mission.

Washington state and Canada already have opted out of linking their drivers licenses databases with the new system, but they will allow DHS to query their systems on a case-by-case basis. Other states, including Vermont, have acceded to DHS linking requirement because they were unable to comply with the microsecond response times the system demands.

“There was absolutely no way [DHS] should have the entire database,” Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s privacy commissioner, told the Post. She learned about the Canadian government’s decision in April. “Once you have data in a database you don’t need, it lends itself to unauthorized use.”

According to the Federal Register notice, DHS data may be shared with attorneys and courts in civil matters including divorce and child-custody cases, as well as with the news media “when there exists a legitimate public interest in the disclosure of the information.” The notice does not define “legitimate public interest.”

DHS intends for BCIS to be exempt from Privacy Act provisions. Citizens will not be informed when someone requests their file and they will not be allowed to seek correction of erroneous information.

Public comments about BCIS will be accepted until Monday, when the new system officially goes into effect. Instructions for commenting may be found in the BCIS notice posted on the Government Printing Office’s website at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-17123.htm.