Key EP vote scheduled for Thursday, 19 April
Have you ever heard of David Headley? Does this name ring a bell? Sound familiar?
He is the US citizen responsible for a series of attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008, which killed 163 people. He also led planned attacks on a Danish newspaper for publishing controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.
You may not remember this name, but you will certainly remember the harrowing images of the Mumbai attack. Equally, the attempted attack against the Danish newspaper couldn’t have gone unnoticed.
Before this terrorist had a chance to endanger any more lives, US authorities accessed his Passenger Names Record (PNR) data from a flight he had booked from the US to Germany, and he was arrested before he could leave the country.
The perpetrator of a failed New York bombing in 2010, Faisal Shahzad, was also caught and arrested with the help of PNR as he attempted to escape from JFK Airport.
The PNR stores passenger information and allows agents in the airline industry to access information related to the trip, including the travel itinerary, payment details and where the ticket was bought.
The current EU-US PNR system was introduced in 2007 as a response to the 9/11 attack, but it wasn’t long before EU institutions realised that the agreement required essential revision to align it with data protection policies in the EU.
On 27 March, the European Parliament Home Affairs and Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) voted for a draft recommendation to replace the current PNR agreement.
The new recommendation will be voted on by MEPs in the Strasbourg plenary session on Thursday 19 April. If the proposed agreement is rejected, the 2007 agreement will apply until it expires in July 2014.
Increased protection of citizens
The Group of the European People’s Party fully supports the new EU-US PNR, as it believes the agreement is necessary to effectively fight serious crime, including terrorism and drug trafficking, and to ensure full legal protection of passengers’ personal data.
With this new agreement, airlines must transfer the personal data of passengers to US authorities, which would be obliged to share information with EU law enforcement and EU judicial authorities. It also strictly specifies the purposes for which PNR data may be used by US authorities, namely the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorism and transnational crimes punishable by three years of imprisonment or more.
EPP Coordinator on the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, Dr Simon Busuttil MEP, said: “This new agreement is an effective instrument to fight terrorism and strengthen our citizens’ security. At the same time it also constitutes a framework of data protection rights that guarantee citizens’ security will not come at the expense of their privacy. The result is an agreement which is a big plus for our citizens.”
To further protect the privacy of citizens, rules on how long PNR data can be stored, have been agreed on. Passengers will be able to access their PNR data to correct or delete it, and strict conditions would be imposed on the US authorities regarding the use of data which might reveal sensitive personal information, for example, the religion or sexual orientation of passengers.
Deal or no deal
Those against the deal say many of the terms are too vague, leaving room for the possibility of misuse of personal information. Some criticise it as an intrusion on the privacy and civil liberties of citizens, saying the agreement violates sections of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU relating to data protection.
Although the EPP Group recognises the flaws of the agreement, it is of the opinion that, after years of EU-US negotiations, this agreement offers a regulatory framework and more legal protection for us, European citizens. This agreement is much better than the 2007 agreement, which seriously lacks privacy safeguards.
According to Dr Busuttil, the agreement could have been better. However he believes that it should be supported because it serves its purpose well and citizens and airlines are much better off with it in place, rather than without it, both from a security as well as from a data protection point of view.
The debate can be followed on http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sed/video.do, which is scheduled for Thursday 19 at 9am. The vote will be taken shortly after the debate, at noon.
Mr Stellini is a press adviser with the Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament