Brussels, 02/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - EU talks with the United States, Canada and Australia will soon be able to begin with a view to concluding agreements on the transfer of Passenger Name Records (PNR) for counter-terrorism purposes. On Thursday, EU home ministers adopted three identical negotiating mandates for talks to begin with these three countries. The mandates set out a series of specific objectives to be attained by the Commission during the negotiations. Agreements are to be restricted to the prevention of and the fight against terrorism as well as to cross-border crime. European police forces, Europol and Eurojust are expected to have access to useful information taken from PNR. Future agreements should be in line with the law on the protection of personal data as defined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Guarantees, also, should ensure that only a minimum number of data categories should be transferred and that sensitive data should not be used except in exceptional circumstances, for example, in the event of imminent threat. Citizens should have a right of access to data and the right to correct and delete data as well as an effective right of administrative and judicial appeal on a non-discriminatory basis. A team of independent experts on data protection should be able to oversee application of the agreements and conduct monitoring to ensure this is proportionate to data selected. The duration of data retention should also be as short as possible and deletion should be foreseen after the same period. PNR should never be made available to any accredited authority en masse but only on a case by case basis. This is also true for the transmission of PNR to third countries, which should ensure there is a level of data protection equal to that set out in the agreement. What is more, transmission authorisation of PNR to a third country should receive the endorsement of the European country concerned, except in cases of “force majeure”. Agreements should finally be signed for seven years and it is foreseen that the Council should examine, before the end of this period and on the basis of an assessment presented by the Commission to Council and Parliament, whether the agreements may be renewed or not for the same period. (B.C./transl.jl)