DHS/TSA/PIA-050 Amtrak Rail Passenger Threat Assessment

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for security in all modes of transportation, including surface modes such as rail. Amtrak is a national passenger rail operator managing more than 300 trains a day to more than 500 destinations in the United States and Canada. For several months beginning at the end of 2021, from an operational risk perspective, TSA assessed historical passenger data for travel within the Northeast corridor to determine the extent to which known or suspected terrorists may have traveled on Amtrak trains to assess whether watchlist matching should be considered as a rail security enhancement. To conduct the assessment, Amtrak provided TSA with rail passenger personally identifiable information (PII) for TSA to match against the Terrorist Screening Center’s (TSC) Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS),  commonly known as the “watchlist.” TSA now intends to assess passenger travel data on additional Amtrak rail routes and is updating this Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) to include Appendix A, which reflects all approved Amtrak rail routes for assessment. TSA is conducting this Privacy Impact Assessment update pursuant to the E-Government Act of 2002 because this assessment entails collection of personally identifiable information on members of the public for watchlist matching. April 2023

Associated SORN(s)

• DHS/TSA-011 Transportation Security Intelligence Service (TSIS) Operations Files