MEPs challenge secret report on EU-US air data privacy

A closed hearing and a confidential European commission report on handovers of air passenger data to US security agencies may be contested by MEPs.

Four Liberal members of the European parliament’s civil liberties committee are angry that an assessment of implementation of a controversial EU-US agreement is secret.

EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini can expected a grilling at a meeting of the committee on Monday night – but the ‘in camera’ exchanges themselves will be restricted from public gaze.

The parliament’s lead MEP on ‘passenger name records’ (PNR) Sophie In't Veld will be joined in protest by her colleagues Alexander Alvaro, Sarah Ludford and Jeannine Hennis-Plasschaert.

Unless Frattini agrees to openness on the data transfers - currently being challeneged in the EU courts – the MEPs will mount a procedural challenge to the hush-up.

“There may well be countries, which will remain nameless, which do not want this information revealed but some MEPs take the view ‘too bad’,” a parliament official told EUpolitix.

In't Veld argues that it is “completely unjustified to deny public access to this report” under arcane inter-EU procedures.

She believes if the report on US conformity with European data privacy is ruled confidential this will only fuel concerns.

“Keeping this document confidential would create an unjustified fear about the level of compliance concerning the protection of data of EU citizens,” she said.

“I feel it is imperative that the document and the debate are public to dispel misunderstandings.”

Hennis-Plasschaert suggests that the report has been covered up because it may embarrass Washington.

“At this rate we will be faced with a choice between protecting EU citizens' rights to privacy and transparency, or protecting international relations.

“I want to hear from the commission how and why the document could harm our relations with the US.”

EU-US security cooperation over handover of computerised PNR to US security agencies has been controversial since March 2003.

Information – 34 fields of data – has been delivered straight from European central reservation systems to US law enforcement databases.

Details include the names of all travellers, all contact details, telephone numbers, addresses, emails, payment information, bank numbers and credit card data.

The parliament last June rejected Washington and Brussels assurances that the transfers would respect EU privacy law.

On November 22 the ECJ’s advocate general ruled against the EU handovers of air passenger data.

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