EU agrees deal with US on data grabs

EU and US negotiators have reached a short-term agreement on exchanging passenger data on transatlantic flights.

US homeland security officials will continue to have access to passenger data from EU carriers under the terms of a 2004 agreement, but will no longer be given direct electronic access to airline databases.

The European court of justice ruled in May this year that the original deal must be scrapped because of concerns about inadequate levels of data protection in the US.

EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said that the new system agreed with the US department of homeland security met demands from the European parliament for a rebalancing of the previous agreement.

“We decided together to guarantee a new system for transferring data, which I believe is very good news,” he told journalists.

“In the past we had a ‘pull’ system, which meant the US was allowed to pull data directly from airline databases in the EU.”

“Now have a push system – the US must make a request to the airlines to give them the information.”

“There will be no direct access for US authorities – this was one of the main topics of our discussions in the parliament.”

But the Finnish EU presidency, which jointly negotiated the deal with the commission, said that the ‘pull’ system would remain in place until the new ‘push’ system could be implemented – sometime before the end of the year.

Frattini said that reaching an agreement – after nine hours of negotiations on Thursday night – had been vital.

“This agreement will guarantee legal continuity on a very sensitive matter, and we are pleased that we have been able to keep the European framework.”

“There was a concrete risk after the ECJ ruling that instead of a pan-European deal we would have had lots of bilateral agreements, and that would have been a great risk to security and privacy of EU citizens,” the Italian commissioner said.

He stressed that the interim deal, which will expire in July 2007, also included further safeguards to ensure the protection of data on EU citizens.

He said the agreement was about making the exchange of data with US agencies easier, not about providing more information.

US authorities already ask for 34 different pieces of information about EU travellers, and were thought to be asking for access to even more data - a major point of concern for the EU.  

“The key word is ‘facilitate’,” Frattini said. “The department of homeland security will facilitate the exchange of data to other agencies, but there will be no increase in the amount of information required.”

“But we have also stipulated that this does not mean that other agencies can have unconditional direct electronic access to the data – they will have to ask the department to disclose the information.”

“And there is a third condition – this information will only be disclosed to other agencies if they can guarantee a comparable standard of data protection.”

Leena Luhtanen, Finland’s justice minister, said she hoped the agreement would be rubber-stamped by EU capitals “at the earliest opportunity, probably next week”.

Frattini added that the agreement was only an interim deal – it will expire in July 2007 – and that talks with Washington on a new, permanent agreement would begin next month.

MEPs gave the agreement a cautious welcome. “It was vital that we filled the legislative vaccum caused by the ECJ ruling, and because of that we are happy that a new agreement has been reached,” said Martine Roure, the French centre-left deputy who was parliament’s rapporteur on PNR data.
 
But she stressed that it was now up to the US authorities to ensure that all the safeguards were in place, and that it was vital that a new deal be reached in 2007

“This new agreement must give European citizens the right to challenge the misuse of their personal data in the courts,” she said.

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