The European Commission has issued a positive report on Member States’ transposition of the European PNR Directive, the purpose of which is to collect data from air passengers entering or leaving the EU, although two Member States - Spain and Slovenia - have not yet transposed the Directive.
Slovenia has only partially transposed the Directive, while Spain has not provided notice of any measures and was referred to the Court of Justice on 2 July.
These are the findings drawn up by the Commission in a report on the Directive, which was due to be transposed in May 2018. The report was published and sent to the European Parliament on 24 July.
In the report - which does not provide any figures to demonstrate the effectiveness of this tool in preventing terrorism and serious crime, such as the number of potentially dangerous individuals who have been detected as a result of the PNR - the Commission concludes that Member States generally comply well with the Directive’s objectives and requirements, including, for example, the data retention period (five years).
On this point, it does, however, note that four Member States exceeded the requirements of necessity and proportionality with regard to data collection for reasons of national security. The Commission does not specify which countries.
“The vast majority of Member States have fully operational Passenger Information Units, which are the designated units responsible for collecting and processing PNR data. These Passenger Information Units have developed a good level of cooperation with other competent national authorities and Passenger Information Units in other Member States”, says the Commission in the report.
With regard to data protection compliance, the Commission notes that “analysis of national transposition measures shows overall compliance with the requirements of the PNR Directive”, even if “some Member States have not succeeded in fully reflecting them in their national legislation”
To consult the document: https://bit.ly/2P9AwjK. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)