EU & US agree to share passenger data

Prolong efforts by European Union (EU) and US negotiators to reach a common agreement to share information on passengers flying across the Atlantic, eventually, on Friday turned fruitful when the both parties agreed to enter the deal for sharing airline passenger data.

The EU’s top court had set September 30th as the deadline to resolve the issue, but both the sides missed the deadline.

Finnish Justice Minister Leena Luhtanen, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, said in an announcement made after a trans-Atlantic video conference lasting at least seven hours, "We have a new interim passenger name record (PNR) agreement and this will replace the earlier agreement from 2004 that was annulled."

"This new agreement will provide the possibility of giving data to the US authorities while guaranteeing sufficient data protection," she added.

The interim agreement will replace the 2004 deal that was annulled by Europe's top court in May following a complaint based on privacy issues. Under the deal, the EU instead of "pulling" will "push" the data, a 34 pieces of database per passenger, to the US Department of Homeland Security. The new deal also ensures that the data will be "pushed" to US customs when they demand for it, rather than permitting the agency to "pull" the information off airline computers.

After 9/11 attacks, it was made mandatory for airlines flying across the Atlantic to submit a specific set of information of the passengers including their phone number, mode of payment, addresses, travel itinerary etc. within few minutes of the departure of the flight to US, or face being diverted and the possibility of hefty fines. The process was among the million other measures that were taken up to deal with terrorism.

Uptill now, the data was sent to the US customs authorities, but the Department of Homeland Security intends it to be shared with other anti-terror agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Under the novel deal, the same data will be available with US customs authorities, who will then be able to pass it on under certain circumstances and if privacy requirements are respected.

In a poll “EU's failure to reach accord with U.S. on sharing passenger data is a setback to fight against terrorism?”, conducted by The Money Times prior the recent accord, 49% people agreed that the accord is must to tackle terrorism while 36% disagreed.

During the negotiations EU officials placed emphasis, that they shared Washington's concerns about terrorism, but demanded strict data protection guarantees in return for a more routine sharing of personal details of air passengers among US government law enforcement officials. "We are not talking about more data or more exchanges, we are talking about making easier transmitting data to agencies," EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said.

"It would have been a great risk for Europe, for security and for the privacy of European citizens," he said. "We couldn't have kept the proper level of privacy protection."

The previous deal became void on 1 October when both sides failed to agree on terms for a renewal. The new interim accord will lapse at the end of July 2007.