Brussels, 02/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 2 February, in a draft directive to force airlines to provide the EU27 authorities with personal information about European air passengers like name, address, telephone numbers and bank account details (the infamous PNR - Passenger Name Records), EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström suggested the aim should be to collate information about Europeans travelling to or from outside the EU in order to tackle terrorism and serious crime while ensuring high levels of privacy.
The personal information would be sent to a special unit for this end in each member state, where it would be analysed and compared with other databases by specialist teams of police or other data experts. The units would set up an early warning system and share the results with their counterparts in the EU if passengers are alleged to have links with terrorism or organised crime.
Under the draft directive, more personal information like an individual's religious convictions, sexual orientation and ethnic origin would never be supplied, said Malmström, and she suggested that in order to protect an individual's privacy, the PNR should be kept for no longer than 36 days, but it would be possible to keep the information anonymously for up to 5 years in a coded document requiring a password from the competent authorities to find the name and address of the individual in question. The Commission says that five years is the average duration already used by the member states for data storage, most member states opting for 4 to 6 years on average.
Several member states have their own PNR already, like the UK, France and Denmark, while others, like the Netherlands, are setting one up, hence the utility of an EU PNR. The Commission argues that it is time to harmonise data retention across the EU, particularly privacy and confidentiality rules. The draft directive may not answer all expectations, particularly for flights within the EU because the UK, Sweden, France and Denmark want the EU PNR to apply to absolutely all flights within the EU as well as flights to and from other parts of the world. The Commission did not rule this out on Wednesday, including a clause in the draft directive whereby the system could be extended to all flights two years after the directive comes into force but it says that such an option is not feasible and would be too expensive at this stage. The cost question may not be much of an issue at the Council of Ministers, where the draft directive, that requires a qualified majority agreement, will be unveiled on 24 February, because sources suggest that the member states may decide to only agree to the directive if the European PNR system is extended to cover all flights within the EU.
Meanwhile, the other co-legislator (along with the Council of Ministers), the European Parliament, has broadly welcomed the draft directive, Dutch MEP Sophia In't Veld (ALDE) expressing pleasure that the Commission had listened to the EP's criticisms (the initial draft had suggested that it should be possible to store information for up to 13 years) and concerns about data protection. Other questions are still open in the eyes of Sarah Ludford (ALDE, UK) because alongside the new European PNR rules, the EU has already promised the United States, Canada and Australia more relaxed data protection rules for the transfer of European air passengers' personal information to the three countries and the EP wants clarification about the reasons for this. (S.P./transl.fl)