Brussels, 22/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - Community sources indicate that the US Administration is expected to provide guarantees called for by the European Commission in connection with passenger data protection in European airlines. Since 5 March, the US government has access to personal data of passengers flying to, through and from the USA. In compliance with the European directive of 1995 on personal data protection, these guarantees are indispensable for the Commission in its preparation of a draft decision, which should cover this access legally and which will be submitted to parliament and the Council.
"Meetings are continuing between the US authorities", declare Jonathan Todd, spokesperson of the Commissioner of the internal market, Frits Bolkestein. "We hope to be able to clarify the necessary commitment from the US on data protection with regard to European legislation in order to be able to begin the necessary procedures for adopting a formal decision", he added. Presentation of the draft decision could take place in September. However, the Commission is still waiting the putting into practice of certain commitments taken by the USA to protect the data concerned and which figure in the "joint declaration" adopted by the Commission and the US government on 18 February. This will most notably involve "filters" in the European airlines reservation systems, in order to be able to restrict access to data of a personal nature of passengers and which the USA has not always put into place. The Commission wants to obtain additional guarantees on: the process "sensitive" data (ethnicity, religious, health, length of time for data storage, possibilities for passengers to appeal if stored information is wrong or over the independence of the authority in charge of verification s well as the different US federal agencies having access to the data. All these requests echo those expressed by the European Parliament on many occasions (EUROPE 8 May p 15, 29 March p 15 and 14 March p 13).
While awaiting, the airlines are complying with US demands; however without legal authority, they could be sanctioned for having infringed the directive on data protection of a personal character, on the basis of complaints emanating from a national regulatory authority or a passenger.