In response to thwarted attack on US flight, EU presidency urges more data-sharing between member states.
The Spanish presidency of the EU said today that it will seek increased sharing of airline passenger data between member states.
It said the step was part of its response to last month’s failed terrorist attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
“We should be able to share information between ourselves,” Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Spain’s interior minister, said.
He said Spain would revive a proposal, first presented by the European Commission in 2007, for the sharing of so-called passenger name record (PNR) data.
PNR is the data collected in airline reservation systems, and includes passengers’ names and addresses as well as, potentially, other more sensitive information, such as dietary requirements.
The Commission last year withdrew its PNR proposal following a request by the European Parliament, which said it would not have time to give its opinion before the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty on 1 December. The proposal, for legal reasons, had either to be agreed or withdrawn by the time the Lisbon treaty entered into force.
The Parliament’s civil liberties committee had raised concerns that the information-sharing envisaged in the proposal would infringe peoples’ right to privacy.
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Some national governments, notably Germany’s, strongly opposed the 2008 proposal, both because of concerns over citizens rights and over the potential administrative burden of information-sharing. A complaint about the proposal was raised before Germany’s constitutional court.
Pérez Rubalcaba said, however, that he felt the attempted attack over Detroit could make the Parliament and governments “more receptive” to data sharing. The Parliament would have co-decision powers over any draft legislation to set up a European PNR scheme.
The minister said he would also seek progress on sharing of data held by national law enforcement authorities.
“Perhaps this failed attempt on Detroit will enable us to go faster,” he said, adding that he would “use” the failed attack to push forward discussions. He said that it did not make sense for EU governments not to share more data, given that an international treaty already requires them to share it with the US.