Brussels, 01/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 1 December during an assessment of the progress achieved in the inter-institutional negotiations at the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee, Timothy Kirkhope, the European Parliament rapporteur on the European PNR dossier, took a firm line on the question of how long air line passenger data should be retained.
The British Conservative said that the fact that this text stipulated that airline passenger data could be kept for 12 months or more was totally unacceptable. He pointed out that on this issue, the positions of the two co-legislating institutions were originally very far removed from each other, with the Council of the EU demanding a maximum period of five years and the European Parliament unwilling to accept anything longer than 30 days.
Kirkhope also warned his counterparts that without including intra-European flights in the scope of the legislative text, there would be a significant risk that member states would introduce their own national PNR systems. He also said that these national systems could possibly contain significant disparities with regard to respect for data protection, one of the MEPs' chief battle horses.
The rapporteur also indicated that he was not prepared at all to relent on the question of including a “comprehensive and robust” revision mechanism in the future European PNR.
An inter-institutional negotiating session will take place on Wednesday 2 December on this dossier, which has become even more urgent, since the terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)