On 28 May 2004, the European Union and the United states officially signed an agreement that will allow US authorities to collect airline Passenger Name Record (PNR) information relating to transatlantic flights. According to the European Commission, this negotiated solution will improve the situation for EU citizens and airlines by establishing legal certainty and committing the US to a number of guarantees in terms of data protection.
The international agreement will allow US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect airline Passenger Name Record (PNR) information relating to transatlantic flights, thereby establishing the legal basis for the collection and transfer of such information in a way that is consistent with both US and EU laws. Indeed, passenger data transfer has been taking place since 2002 in a state of legal uncertainty, potentially in breach of EU data protection rules.
The agreement was signed by Irish Ambassador Noel Fahey, representing the Presidency of the European Union, Head of European Commission Delegation in Washington Günter Burghardt, and US Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. It will be in effect for three-and-a-half years once it is implemented, with renegotiations to start within one year of the agreement's expiration date. Together with a more specific set of Undertakings detailing how the US CBP will process and handle PNR data, the agreement provides guarantees for a number of areas:
The European Commission and the Member States thus decided to sign the agreement despite the opposition of the European Parliament, which voted on 21 April 2004 to refer it to the European Court of Justice. Now that the agreement has been signed, the Parliament - which had called upon the Commission and Council to wait until the opinion of the Court of Justice on the agreement's legality is known - could still decide to seek the annulment of the deal. However, such action will only be decided after the upcoming European elections.
© European Communities 2004
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Further information:
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- Articles by the International Herald Tribune, EurActiv, InSourced, Out-Law.com, The Boston Globe, The Register, ComputerWeekly, Wired and EUobserver.com
- Previous related articles published by the eGovernment Observatory: EU-US deal on transfer of passenger data gets go-ahead (18 May 2004), MEPs reject urgency procedure on passenger data transfer to the US (07 May 2004), European Parliament refers transfer of air passenger data to the Court of Justice (22 April 2004), European Parliament steps up opposition to transfer of EU passenger data to the US (07 April 2004), European Commission presents agreement on transfer of EU passenger data to the US (22 March 2004), Transfer of passenger details to US infringes EU data protection laws, says European Parliament (11 March 2004), US to begin testing new plane passenger screening system (19 January 2004)
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