U.S. announces The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it will begin implementation of one measure of the Secure Flight program--uniform watch-list matching. The program is designed to conduct uniform prescreening of passenger information against federal government watch lists for domestic and international flights. Currently, air carriers are responsible for checking passengers against government watch lists.

Under Secure Flight, TSA will receive information for each passenger. TSA will then determine any matches of information with government watch lists and transmit matching results back to aircraft operators.

Secure Flight will match limited passenger information against government watch lists to identify known and suspected terrorists, prevent known and suspected terrorists from boarding an aircraft, facilitate legitimate passenger air travel, and protect individuals' privacy. Secure Flight will, the DHS says:

• Identify known and suspected terrorists;
• Prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft;
• Identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening,
• Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators; and
• Protect individuals' privacy.

Initial implementation of Secure Flight is expected to start late next year. The goal, the agency says, is to create one DHS system responsible for screening all aviation passengers.

For more information or to comment on the program, click here.