Travelers to Europe May Face Fingerprinting
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The European Commission will propose tomorrow that all foreign travelers into and out of Europe, including U.S. citizens, should be fingerprinted. If approved by the European Parliament, the measure would mean that precisely identifying information on tens of millions of citizens will be added in...
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European officials yesterday joined the chorus of concern over a U.S. screening program that creates risk profiles for every air traveler entering or leaving the United States, and sought assurances that the system does not violate European privacy rights.
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Privacy advocates obtain records showing that people pulled aside for extra screening during international travel may have detailed records, including reason for travel, race and reading material, stored by the government for years.
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EU ministers on Friday backed plans to collect data on air travellers coming to Europe, a move which could force visitors to provide information three times before entering.
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(InfoWorld) - Europeans who visit the U.S. will be required to fill out an online questionnaire two days before they enter the country under a proposal being studied by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department has been discussing the idea internally for about a month, said Hugo Teufel III, chief privacy officer for the DHS, in a meeting with journalists in Paris on Thursday. He could not say when the registration system might be introduced. The proposal will likely increase tensions between the U.S. and Europe at a time when the two sides are already in heated debate over U.S. demands for data about air passengers flying from Europe to the U.S. The U.S. says it needs access to more data to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country, while European regulators counter that the demands are excessive and worry how the data will be used. The online registration would complement the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, a program disclosed by the DHS in November that assigns a "risk assessment" to people entering and leaving the U.S., to determine the likelihood that they pose a security threat. The registration system would likely require approval by the U.S. Congress before it could be introduced, Teufel said. "It's a fairly new initiative in that we've been discussing it internally for about a month," he added. He offered few other details Thursday, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff discussed the proposal earlier this week in an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel. Chertoff said the U.S. wanted to "elevate the security level generally" for foreign visitors, particularly in light of its looser visa requirements for some countries. The online registration "would be similar to what they do in Australia where visa waiver travelers would register online in advance, and they would, therefore, know before they arrive in the United States whether there was going to be a problem with their being admitted," Chertoff told the newspaper. "The registration would have a shelf life of some years. It wouldn't be something you do every trip, you would do it periodically," he added. The DHS will prepare a "privacy impact assessment" on the registration plan, Teufel said Thursday. Such assessments cover issues like how data is used, who can access it and for how long it will be retained. Teufel suggested that the assessment report would be made available to the public, although U.S. law makes exceptions for reports about systems used by the intelligence community, he said. Teufel was appointed by Chertoff in July last year and is responsible for the DHS's privacy policies.
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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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Patients treated with radioactive compounds may want to carry a note from their doctors when traveling - or risk being mistaken for a terrorist.
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All travelers, U.S. citizens and others, need to be aware of certain issues when entering the U.S. with electronic equipment.
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InfoWorld - Europeans who visit the U.S. will be required to fill out an online questionnaire two days before they enter the country under a proposal being studied by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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STRASBOURG, France  - European governments and secret services accepted and concealed secret U.S. flights of terrorism suspects across Europe, the European Parliament said on Wednesday.
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Europe's Parliament is to look at how data on air passengers and citizens' bank details is being sent to the US.
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With plans to enter Europe by the end of the year, Apple could be ready to announce who gets to carry the iPhone.
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European Commission proposed biometric checks include face screening and automated security checks.
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Germany will store digital fingerprints in addition to digital photos in passports as one of several biometric security measures.
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Privacy chiefs impose deadline Privacy chiefs have given Europe's banks a September deadline for alerting customers that their financial transactions could be tracked by US security agencies. Customers must be warned that even transactions within Europe could be monitored, they said.â¦
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Starting in November, German passports will store digital fingerprints as one of several biometric security measures planned to fight organized crime and international terrorism.
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Iris, fingers, head, shoulders, knees and toes The UK, Europe and the US are planning to belt and brace their border databases by using multiple forms of biometrics to identify people.â¦