Clear’s privacy policy:

I wrote earlier about how Clear appears to be willing to sell its customer database to another Registered Traveler company.

It turns out that that this would be a violation of Clear’s privacy policy, at least as it stood on Oct. 1 2008.

Section 3, subsection B seems pretty, um, clear:

B. None of the information that we collect may be used for any purpose outside the operation and maintenance of the Clear Services

Of course, what are the penalties for an out -of-business company that violates its own privacy policy? Come to think of it, what penalties are there for any company that violates its privacy policy?

UPDATE

I just spoke with Clear’s privacy ombudsman, Professor Paul Schwartz, of the University of California, Berkeley. In his opinion selling the Clear service to another company, that continued to operate Clear would not violate this policy.

On the other hand, handing over your credit and biometric information to a another company without your consent seems, at very least, uncool.

Clear should give its former customers a way to have their data deleted immediately.

I”m going to try to get an interview with someone at Clear, so if you have any questions you’d like me to ask, drop me a  line at bob_mcmillan@idg.com

You can find the original pdf version of Clear’s privacy policy here.

Text version follows: