Brussels, 15/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - The draft regulation on the European PNR system, that is, the gathering of information on European citizens travelling to or from third countries, presented by the Commission on 2 February, is still a long way off being acceptable in terms of fundamental rights. That, at any rate, is the view of the European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), which has just published its latest assessment of the matter, at the request of the European Parliament.
In its opinion, the Agency notes firstly that the Commission checked the compliance of the proposal with European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and itself acknowledged that the PNR system does not meet some of its provisions, for example, in relation to respect for privacy and protection of personal information. According to FRA, while improvement has been brought to previous proposals on a European PNR, the draft directive still contains risks of indirect discrimination, for example, related to the name of the passenger, something that is outlawed by Article 21 of the Charter. The problem is that this type of discrimination can only be monitored in practice and the Commission, therefore, will have to establish reliable statistics.
Another area of concern is the definition of “serious crimes” justifying the use of PNR data. The FRA believes the definition is too wide and allows too great freedom of interpretation. In relation to proportionality, FRA recommends that the directive should include the explicit requirement that as many criteria as possible be set out so that as few innocent people as possible are flagged up by the system.
These observations were welcomed by MEPs, in particular those from the Greens/EFA, who, on Wednesday, quite simply called on the Commission to abandon its PNR plans and also negotiation of PNR agreements with third countries, especially the United States. (S.P./transl.rt)