When you reserve a flight, a set of data about you is collected during the reservation process.
The debate lies in balancing the right to security and to privacy- Simon Busuttil
This information is known as passenger name record or PNR.
It consists of information such as your name, your address, your contact information, your meal preferences (if you made any) and your seat number. It is collected by air carriers for the purposes of processing flight reservations and checking in passengers.
At a glance this data might appear to be pretty dull and useful only for flight administration purposes.
But there is more to it than meets the eye. This data can be also used very effectively for counter terrorism purposes. This means that it can provide useful tips that can help authorities save lives by foiling terrorist attacks and bringing terrorists to justice.
PNR data has proven effective in the fight against terrorism on a number of occasions. For example, it was crucial in foiling the Time Square bombing in New York and to identify the people behind the Mumbai bombings in India.
Sharing PNR information, therefore, becomes a crucial matter for the purposes of fighting terrorism.
And whereas within the EU we are still in the process of establishing an EU-wide PNR system, other countries, such as the US, Canada and Australia already operate one. Thus, the issue of sharing PNR data with these countries which are visited by so many EU citizens every year, comes into play.
But although the security benefits of processing PNR data is so evident, it is still no stranger to controversy.
The big debate lies in balancing your right to security with your right to privacy.
For no matter how useful this data can be in fighting terrorism, it still requires the sharing of the personal information of passengers who, with very few exceptions, are law-abiding citizens.
A few days ago in the European Parliament we overwhelmingly voted in favour of a PNR agreement between the EU and the US.
The agreement establishes rules under which EU airlines can pass on PNR data to the US authorities of passengers who travel from the EU to the US.
This agreement was controversial because, admittedly, not everyone is comfortable with passing on personal data to third countries.
As EPP coordinator on justice and home affairs, I was involved in establishing my group’s position and I followed the intriguing negotiations with the US counterparts for more than a year.
I have pursued this issue with the EPP’s trademark sense of proportionality and balance.
There was no question of denying the US authorities this data as it would have been plainly irresponsible to do so. Still, we readily accept that the fight against terrorism should not be a carte blanche to throw our privacy down the drain.
Suffice it to say that the US already collects this information. So the question was not whether to start allowing this to take place but more likely, how to control it.
Indeed, the first EU-US PNR agreement dates back to 2004. And ever since, the European Parliament has been calling for new negotiations for a better agreement which would provide proper guarantees on privacy.
In May 2010, the European Parliament refused to give its consent on a 2007 EU-US PNR agreement because again it provided insufficient guarantees.
As a result, in January 2011, the Commission started negotiating a new PNR agreement with the US. Then, in May last year, we resisted an attempt to go for a quick vote because we felt that the agreement was still not good enough. So we asked the Commission to do better.
The agreement which we voted for last week is the result of these last negotiations.
Ok, the final result is far from perfect and it can be criticised. But we voted in favour because we felt that it is good enough and that it is preferable to the current situation where data is still shared without sufficient guarantees.
The agreement regulates issues such as the purpose for which the PNR data can be used (only terrorism and serious crimes); the maximum period of time for which it can be retained; the handling of sensitive data such as religious meal choices, as well as judicial redress for EU citizens if their data is abused. Without this agreement, citizens would not have this protection.
There is one other point to take into consideration.
That regardless of any agreement, the US, as a sovereign country, still has the right to ask for whatever data it wants to from people who want to enter its territory. Just that without this agreement it would have been able to do so with no strings attached.
All this led me and my group to conclude that EU citizens are better off with this agreement than without it.
Our next step is now to create a European PNR system. We are working on this in the Civil Liberties Committee and I will keep readers informed in due course.
simon.busuttil@europarl.europa.eu
Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.