Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said the collection is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats, the report said, citing a Federal Register notice the agency issued last month.
Officials said the disclosure is among a series of notices to make the department's data gathering more transparent, the newspaper reported.

A notice by Customs and Border Protection, a DHS agency, said it does not perform data mining on border crossings to search for patterns that could signal a terrorist or law enforcement threat, according to the Post.

But it states that information may be shared with federal, state and local governments to test "new technology and systems designed to enhance border security or identify other violations of law," the Post reported.

A DHS spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the report. Information on international air passengers has long been collected this way, but Customs and Border Protection only this year began to log the arrivals of all US citizens across land borders, the Post said.

Privacy advocates raised concerns about the expanded collection of personal data and said safeguards are needed to ensure the system is not abused. "People expect to be checked when they enter the country and for the government to determine if they're admissible or not," Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy & Technology told the Post.

DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told the paper that the retention period was justified. "History has shown, whether you are talking about criminal or terrorist activity, that plotting, planning or even relationships among conspirators can go on for years," he said. "Basic travel records can, quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots."

US government has been widely trying to take precautions against the terrorist acts after 9/11, but has been critised by the entire world for the freedom-restricting policies in the guise of "war on terror".

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