EU hopes for new pact with U.S. on passenger data
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The European Union hopes to reach an  agreement with the United States on a new pact on sharing of  airline passenger data next Friday, the European Commission  said on Sunday.
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Europe and the United States should  boost information exchanges on terrorists, the EU's top justice  official said on Friday ahead of President Bush's visit to  Europe next month.
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European Union ambassadors approved  a last-minute deal clinched on Friday with the United States on  the transfer of personal data on transatlantic air passengers  to U.S. authorities to help combat terrorism, an EU presidency  spokesman said.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Union has reached a preliminary agreement in the long-runningÂ dispute over the handling of personal dataÂ about E.U. citizens flying to the U.S., a European Commission spokesman said Thursday. Franco Frattini, the commissioner for justice and home affairs, together with German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and U.S. secretary for homeland security Michael Chertoff, reached the agreement on Wednesday. However, details wonât be made public until after a meeting of ambassadors for all 27 E.U. countries slated for Friday morning, said Friso Roscam Abbing, Frattiniâs spokesman. The ambassadors will have to sign off on the deal, which observers say is likely to happen. U.S. authorities have been trying to use the renewal of a transatlantic agreement permitting the transfer of European air passengersâ data, known as passenger name records (PNRs), to beef up their powers of surveillance of foreigners entering the U.S. Sharing the dataÂ breaches strict European data protection laws, but the European Commission and national governments in the 27 countries in the E.U. negotiated an exemption from the rules in order to allow the U.S. to better protect itself from potential terrorist attacks. That interim agreement was deemed illegal by the European Court of Justice, and the court gave the E.U. until the end of July to come up with a new accord. Failure to do so wouldÂ leave European airlines exposed to massive finesÂ and the possible loss of landing slots in the U.S if they donât continue to hand over the data, or legal action on data protection grounds in the E.U. if they do. Roscam Abbing declined to comment on reports that the political agreement reached Wednesday allows U.S. authorities to hold onto PNR data for 15 years. âWait until the briefing tomorrow,â he said.
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LUXEMBOURG -- U.S. and European negotiators reached an interim deal Friday on sharing trans-Atlantic air passenger data for anti-terrorism investigations, concluding arduous talks that highlighted divisions over privacy rights.
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The European Union hopes to reach an agreement with the United States on a new pact on sharing of airline passenger data next Friday, the European Commission said on Sunday.
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Top European Union and U.S. officials will hold a video conference on Wednesday to try to clinch a deal on sharing air passenger data in the fight against terrorism, EU diplomats said.
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European and U.S. security officials were locked in talks in Brussels Monday to replace a passenger data sharing agreement that wasÂ outlawed by a European courtÂ in May.
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(InfoWorld) - A failure by the U.S. and European Union to reach a new agreement next month on the provision passenger data for transatlantic flights could ground up to 105,000 people each week, the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) director general said Thursday. The two sides need to reach a new accord by the end of September, after the European Court of Justice ruled in May that the current agreement is unacceptable. That agreement calls for airlines to provide U.S. authorities with the names, addresses, ticket payment details, and telephone numbers of passengers on U.S.-bound flights. The EU'sÂ highest court ruledÂ that there was no "appropriate legal basis" for the deal, and said it would cease to be valid from October. If a new agreement isn't reached before then, airlines will be forced to decide whether to continue providing the information in violation of European privacy law, withhold the information in violation of U.S. law, orÂ ground flights to avoid breaking any law, said Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of IATA, at a news conference in Tokyo. "I hope that there will be an agreement because I know that the cooperation between the Homeland Security and European Union is strong and effective," he said. "I think there is time to find a decision," Bisignani said. "It's not up to me to say which is the best decision. It's up to me to say I look forward to increased cooperation and increased discussion between the two parties because we cannot be in a situation on Sept. 30 when we have to make the decision which law to break." Bisignani's comments came two days after U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff wrote in The Washington Post that the U.S. needs continued access to the personal information on passengers, and also wants the rules relaxed on how the information can be used. The US Customs and Border Protection receives the information regularly, he wrote, but cannot share it freely with investigators in other Department of Homeland Security divisions, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or with the Federal Bureau of Investigations -- "never mind with our allies in London." "This information might yet identify associates of those arrested in the plot in Britain, but the rules blind us in routinely searching for that connection," Chertoff wrote. The U.S. says the data allows them to identify certain passengers for additional screening when they arrive in the U.S. while reducing the amount of time spent on screening low-risk passengers.
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The United States and the European Union failed to meet a Saturday deadline to conclude a permanent new agreement on the sharing of airline passenger data, an issue that has raised serious privacy concerns in Europe. But both sides said talks will continue and flights will not be affected.
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The European Union and United States agreed on Friday to the outlines of a new pact to open transatlantic aviation markets, smoothing over a rift on airline ownership in the hope of boosting traffic and creating jobs.
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An agreement could be reached Friday over swapping personal information about passengers.
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Over 100,000 people a week could be stopped from flying unless the United States and the European Union strike a deal over the provision of sensitive information on passengers, the top industry body said.
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The European Union is set to yield to U.S. demands to give law enforcement agencies easier access to transatlantic air passenger data to clinch a deal by the end of the week, EU diplomats said on Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Critics ofÂ last week's agreementÂ allowing European passengers' personal data to be shared with U.S. authorities have just under a month to reshape the accord before it comes into force, said Stavros Lambrinidis, vice president of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee Monday. "There is aÂ battleÂ to make this agreement respectful of European citizens' civil liberties, and it's not over," he said in a telephone interview. The European Parliament has no direct say in the shaping of an agreement that will give U.S. customs, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency free access to airlines' passenger databases to help them prevent potential terrorist attacks. However, some national parliaments will get the chance. "There are about six or seven countries that have to debate this agreement. There is still a chance to change it," Lambrinidis said. The U.S. government demanded access to information about everyone flying to the U.S. from the E.U. in the wake of the terrorist attacks in September 2001. However, by complying with the demand, airlines would have been breaching strict European data protection laws, so the U.S. and E.U. drafted an exemption clause from the laws, which they claim was respectful of European citizens' data. The European Court of JusticeÂ annulled that agreementÂ last year and gave the two sides until the end of this month to come up with an alternative. Failure to do so would leave European airlinesÂ exposed to massive finesÂ and the possible loss of landing slots in the U.S if they don't continue to hand over the data, or legal action on data protection grounds in the E.U. if they do. "It's clear that there has to be an agreement but not one like this," Lambrinidis said. The agreement that was reached during a phone call between German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, E.U. justice and home affairs commissioner Franco Frattini and U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Chertoff last Wednesday reduces the fields of data to be shared from 34 at present to 19. These fields include information such as name, credit-card details and travel itinerary. They won't include dietary requirements, which could be used to identify someone's religion. However, it extends the length of time the U.S. authorities can hold the data from three years to 15 years, and it allows U.S. agencies to dip into the databases at their will. In an interview last week, Europe's data protection supervisor, Peter Hustinx, said his main concern was that the E.U. would grant American agencies the right to pull up information about Europeans whenever they want. He called for a push mechanism, meaning that database managers for the airlines would have to pass over the data, instead. Like the temporary accord it replaces, the new agreement promises an eventual switch to a push mechanism. Under the new agreement, U.S. agencies can pull up the data they want until early next year, when airlines will start pushing it instead. However, the DHS maintains the right to pull the information if airlines don't offer up the data promptly. The main concern, however, is that the agreement omits any binding undertakings for U.S. authorities to safeguard European citizens' data. The details of this arrangement aren't in the agreement itself but in an exchange of letters that haven't been made public, Lambrinidis said. Reacting to the agreement last week, Hustinx said he fears the measure could violate European citizens' rights to privacy. In addition to allowing U.S. authorities to keep the data for 15 years, there would be "no limitation to what U.S. authorities are allowed to do with the data," Hustinx wrote in a letter to Schaeuble on Wednesday after the German minister clinched the deal.
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(InfoWorld) - European and U.S. security officials were locked in talks in Brussels Monday to replace a passenger data sharing agreement that wasÂ outlawed by a European courtÂ in May. The screening of airline passengers entering the U.S. became standard security procedure after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. five years ago. An agreement was struck with the European Union in 2003 permitting airlines carrying passengers to the U.S. to pass over 34 pieces of European citizens' private data to U.S. immigration officials withoutÂ breaching strict European data protection laws. With that agreementÂ due to expireÂ at the end of this month, after being thrown out on a legal technicality by the European Court of Justice, security officials are trying to agree on an interim accord to take over from Oct. 1. Senior U.S. security officials have demanded an interim accord more far-reaching than the existing one, while the European Parliament wants to limit its scope. Without a replacement agreement, airlines face a dilemma: if they don't hand over the passenger name records (PNRs), U.S. authorities may impose hefty fines or withdraw their landing rights, while if they do hand over the data, passengers may sue them for breaching their right to privacy under European laws. The Parliament recommended last Thursday that E.U. governments protect European citizens' civil liberties by ensuring that any fresh deal with the U.S. incorporates new privacy safeguards to prevent the profiling of passengers. Current rules exclude the Parliament from negotiations. Last week it demanded that the legal basis for a Trans-Atlantic data sharing agreement be changed to allow the Parliament joint responsibility for negotiating a long-term replacement accord. The European Commission, the E.U.'s executive body leading the negotiations on the European side, supports changing the legal basis for a new long term accord -- once the interim agreement is in place. Justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini last week said the issue "underlines the need for a single legal basis for justice, liberty and security issues." But he stressed that reaching an interim accord is paramount. "The most important need is to guarantee the continuity of application of the ... agreement, and legal certainty," he said. He wants the interim accord to be the same as the one it is replacing. "I ask the U.S. to agree on the same substance," he told journalists on his way into a meeting with U.S. officials last Thursday. However, it could also incorporate "rules and procedures which effectively restrict the use of PNR data by the U.S. authorities," he told the Parliament last week. Any attempt to limit the scope of the current accord will be fiercely resisted by U.S. officials. In an article published in The Washington Post last Tuesday, U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff asked for the lifting of restrictions on how data can be shared with other agencies. The existing accord forbids U.S. immigration officials from sharing the 34 pieces of data with any other government agency. "European privacy concerns have limited the ability of counterterrorism officials to gain broad access to data of this sort," Chertoff said. Frattini wrote to Chertoff Monday promising continued commitment to cooperating in the fight against terrorism. The E.U., he said, "is better prepared to respond than we were five years ago." However, the alleged terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights that came to light in the U.K. in August shows that more cooperation is needed, he said. In addition to striking a new passenger data agreement with the U.S., Frattini told Chertoff that new priorities include monitoring the use of the Internet by terrorists.
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A deal on sharing EU passenger data with the US will help fight terrorism, says US security chief Michael Chertoff.