The United States and Europe clinched a deal on Friday giving US law enforcement agencies easier access to personal data on transatlantic air passengers to fight terrorism, ending a legal limbo for airlines.
The European Union's highest court struck down a past agreement after a European Parliament challenge prompted by privacy concerns. That expired last Saturday, creating a legal vacuum airlines feared could expose them to breach of privacy suits.
EU lawmakers raised worries that Washington was riding roughshod over data protection concerns in its quest after the September 11, 2001 attacks to further a "war on terrorism" whose tactics many Europeans question. One Greek left-wing deputy accused the EU of having "totally caved in" to US pressure.
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the deal, clinched in nine hours of overnight negotiations, would make it easier for US law enforcement agencies to obtain the information without giving them automatic electronic access.
"We are not talking about more data or more exchanges, we are talking about making it easier to transmit data," he told a news briefing at an EU justice ministers' meeting in Luxembourg.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agreement satisfied US security needs and would allow earlier access to data if needed -- with airlines maybe having to provide it more than 72 hours before departure.
"Obviously (US agencies) will abide by the general privacy rules that we have agreed to," he said in an interview.
EU chief negotiator Jonathan Faull said the amount of data supplied would not increase and the EU had US undertakings on how it would be used, by whom and how long it would be kept.
"We can be sure that all the American agencies provide an acceptable, satisfactory system of data protection," he said. "Not exactly the same as ours... but of equivalent value."
Airlines welcomed the deal. "This is an important agreement that will ensure normal operations for the 105,000 passengers who fly between these two jurisdictions each day," Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement.
Others were less happy. Graham Watson, leader of the EU Parliament's Liberal and Democrat group called the deal the "least worst option" but said it remained very concerned.
"It seems clear... that the current American administration is determined to extract ever more personal data and share it with the wider intelligence community," he said.
"It seems that the European Union has totally caved in to US blackmail," Dimitris Papadimoulis, a Greek left-wing European Parliament deputy said.
European airlines must pass on up to 34 items of data, including passenger addresses, telephone numbers and credit card details, to be allowed to land at US airports. The measures were introduced after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
The new pact, which EU governments should formally approve next week, will apply only until July 2007. The two sides will negotiate a long-term agreement in the meantime and Brussels is bound to face US demands for more data and fewer restrictions.
Frattini said that instead of accessing data directly from airlines, US authorities would have to request it, a system that would be piloted before the end of the year.
"It's not direct access and not a power to pull in data," he said, adding that the US Department of Homeland Security would "facilitate" disclosure to other agencies combatting terrorism.
Faull said the data would principally be used by the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. He did not exclude its use by the Central Intelligence Agency, but added: "The CIA is not a significant authority in this respect any more."
October 17, 2006
The United States will push for more flexible arrangements with Europe on how US agencies can use the personal records of air passengers to combat terrorism, a senior US official said on Tuesday.
The United States and the European Union this month agreed temporary rules giving US law enforcement agencies easier access to air passenger data as part of measures brought in after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
But the chief US negotiator of that pact, which is due to be replaced by a permanent accord after July 2007, said Washington would push for the right to hold data on passengers for longer than the current arrangement of 3-1/2 years.
"Our usual rule for law enforcement data is that it is kept for about 40 years, but the real question is how long is it likely to be relevant," said Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the US Department of Homeland Security.
Baker described restrictions included in the current accord as "almost a code of conduct for the United States" but said he was confident that negotiations due to start with Europe would lead to some of them being relaxed in any future deal.
"I am quite hopeful we will be able to have a more flexible arrangement that reflects the fact that we have the same moderately competing goals -- better security and good privacy as well," he told a news briefing in Brussels.
Under the October 6 deal, European airlines must pass on up to 34 items of data, including passengers' addresses, telephone numbers and credit card details, in order to be allowed to land at US airports.
Limits apply on the access to the data enjoyed by US agencies, how long they can keep the records and how they can use them. EU ministers rubber-stamped the deal on Monday and US officials are expected to do the same later this week.
Some EU lawmakers have accused European negotiators of surrendering the privacy rights of air passengers under US pressure, and forecast the deal was just a preamble to a campaign by Washington for greater access to more information.
Baker played down privacy concerns, saying the records being transferred were "not our deepest secrets" but typically only basic data required to make an airline booking.
He added that he hoped any permanent arrangements between the United States and Europe could be a model for similar data transfer systems around the world.
"If the United States and Europe agree on that, we will set the standard and that will be a good thing," he said.
(Reuters) EU agrees flight data deal
June 28, 2007
European Union and US officials were said to have reached agreement yesterday about the transfer to the United States of private data about transatlantic air passengers for use in the fight against terrorism.
The deal was reached in talks between Franco Frattini, the EU Justice and Security Commissioner, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German Interior Minister, and Michael Chertoff, the US Homeland Security Secretary, a spokesman for Mr Frattini said.
Details of the accord must now be approved by the EU’s 27 member states, who will study it on Friday.
Under an interim agreement reached in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, European airlines must pass on up to 34 items of passenger data, including address and credit card details, to be allowed to land at US airports.
That arrangement is due to expire at the end of July, potentially leaving airlines in a legal limbo and exposed to privacy complaints.
No details of the deal were disclosed but another EU diplomat has said previously that, under the new arrangement, data would be kept for 15 years.
Under the interim accord, information can be held for between 3½ and 11½ years.
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