EU, US Airline Passenger Data Pact may Elude Deadline
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Officials continue to discuss ways to share passenger data, but are unlikely to reach a compromise by July's deadline.
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BRUSSELS (SwissInfo) - The European Union's top justice official has proposed tougher anti-terror measures, including gathering data from airline passengers flying into the 27-nation union. But EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said to avoid any "security loopholes" in the event of the measures coming into force in 2010, he would like non-EU member Switzerland and other Schengen states to agree to his plan. The most controversial of the Italian's plans - which would have to be approved by EU governments - calls for EU nations to adopt EU-wide airline security measures similar to those used by the United States, storing a long list of passenger data that would be retained for 13 years. Only those passengers flying into or out of the EU would be affected - those flying inside the EU would not. As Switzerland is not in the EU, passengers flying into and out of Switzerland would have their data collected.  Currently, only three EU states - Britain, Denmark and France - have rules to collect and use Passenger Name Record (PNR) data, but their national systems vary substantially.
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European Union citizens will be protected by the U.S. Privacy Act under an anti-terror deal with Washington on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data, the EU's top justice official said Monday.
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The European Union and the United States are close to finalising an agreement on the exchange of data about European air travellers, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble said Tuesday.
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Passengers taking to the skies for U.S. flights could be checking e-mail and surfing the Web through high-speed Internet connections in a couple of years. And the day when travelers can chat away on cell phones while in flight might not be far behind.
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A new airline passenger information sharing agreement between the EU and the United States aimed at thwarting terrorism will likely go into effect yet this summer following concessions from both sides this week.
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U.S. and European officials might be   able to iron out a "provisional agreement" on transatlantic   airline security before a Saturday deadline, German Interior   Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday.
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The U.S. and European Union have reached a tentative agreement that would give airlines greater freedom to choose trans-Atlantic routes and potentially lead to lower fares, the government announced Friday.
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The U.S. government said on Friday  it was giving airlines until Nov. 23 to turn over information  on millions of people who took domestic flights in June to test  a new system for identifying passengers who may pose security  risks.
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The EU and the United States have  reached a preliminary deal on how U.S. authorities can consult  data from the international banking network SWIFT in  anti-terror investigations, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday.
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Top European and U.S. officials kicked   off talks on Friday to try to replace an annulled deal on   sharing air passenger data to avoid possible disruptions to air   travel when the arrangement expires on September 30.
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The European Union reached an agreement with the United States Friday on the sharing of data on trans-Atlantic air passengers, diplomats said.
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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.
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The European Union reached an agreement with the United States Friday on the sharing of data on trans-Atlantic air passengers which Washington says is needed to help fight terrorism, diplomats said.
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An agreement could be reached Friday over swapping personal information about passengers.
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The United States and the European Union failed to reach a new deal on sharing air passenger data by Saturday's deadline, though officials said negotiations would continue.
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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.