The Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific has begun recording passengers during flights through video cameras and tracking their use of in-flight entertainment devices, CNN Travel reports.
Cathay disclosed the data gathering in its most recent privacy policy, which was updated at the end of last month. The carrier confirmed that it is capturing pictures of its passengers during their time on board their planes, and tracking how they use the in-flight entertainment system and what they do during flights.
"In line with standard practice and to protect our customers and frontline staff, there are CCTV cameras installed in our airport lounges and onboard aircraft (one camera, positioned near the cockpit door) for security purposes," a Cathay Pacific spokesperson told CNN Travel."All images are handled sensitively with strict access controls. There are no CCTV cameras installed in the lavatories."
Other airlines, including American, Emirates and Singapore Airlines, have confessed to recording passengers through cameras located in the in-flight entertainment systems. Cathay denied that they had cameras installed in theirs.
"Our inflight entertainment systems do not have any cameras, microphones or sensors to monitor passengers, nor have they in the past,” the spokesperson said.
Cathay says in its privacy policy that data it collects is stored on secure servers, but "no data transmission over the Internet, a website, mobile application or via email or other message service can be guaranteed to be secure from intrusion."
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