Lawmakers seek probe into US failure to enforce airline passenger privacy rules

Two Democratic U.S. lawmakers have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate why the Transportation Department has not enforced airline passenger privacy rules, calling it a long-running gap in compliance. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Shontel Brown urged the watchdog to examine USDOT’s track record, saying it has brought no enforcement cases tied to passenger data privacy in more than 40 years despite “numerous widely-publicized privacy disasters” affecting hundreds of millions of travelers. The request highlights renewed congressional scrutiny of how aviation regulators handle sensitive customer information and whether existing privacy protections are being actively upheld.