Google "Operation Safe Pilot."
In a blatant violation of the privacy act of 1974 as amended, the FAA, DOT Inspector General, and SSA Inspector General, conducted an illegal database match looking for common personally identifying information (names and/or social security numbers) in the FAA medical certificate database and the SSA Title 2 and Title 16 disability databases of 45,000 Northern California pilots with current medical certificates. In sworn declarations, lawyers for the agencies lied by stating the investigation was a post-9/11/2001 operation to simply verify that pilots were who they claimed to be, and that the discovery that some were collecting SSA disability benefits was coincidental. From its inception, Operation Safe Pilot was about discovering pilots who had falsified their medical certificate applications. In fact, the "investigation" was so sloppy that some of the indicted pilots had been on disability briefly, but hadn't collected benefits for nearly a decade. Forty-five pilots were indicted, and the DOT Inspector General told congress that "hundreds more" could have been prosecuted if the Northern and Central California Attornies General had had more resources.
The privacy act does provide for agencies to conduct database matches under certain conditions, and notices of the proposed matches must be published in the Federal Register stating what the agencies are looking for, why it is legal, and providing time (typically 90 days) for public comment before executing the match. The agencies also have to provide notice in the Federal Register that they are changing the systems of records involved to be applicable to "routine use."
In 2010, the FAA, SSA, and DOT made the changes and published the notices to make these "fishing expeditions" legal. The term "fishing expedition" is used in the Federal Register OMB guidance on agencies complying with the privacy act, and the guidance prohibits database matches where personally identifying information is being search for unless it is for a named individual already under active investigation. These 2010 changes were made six years after the Operation Safe Pilot fiasco.
