EU-US negotiations over flight data to begin Friday

Published 7 September 2006

Officials will try to reach accord on passenger name records; 30 September deadline set by European Court of Justice; airlines face $6000 per passenger fines if talks fail

Diplomacy in action. When the European Union’s top court put the kibosh on an EU-United States deal to share travel itineraries and payment details of trips booked at travel agencies, broadly known as passenger name records (PNR), American planners became so concerned that DHS secretary Michael Chertoff wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post reiterating the need for such information. The European Court of Justice found that the agreement violated privacy laws and gave officials until 30 September 2006 to devise an alternative plan. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini announced this week that such negotiations will begin tomorrow, 8 September, giving American and European officials less than a month to make their arrangements.

Airline companies stand to lose if no agreement can be reached. In a perfect example of how American and international laws can sometimes conflict, airlines failing to share PNR data face fines of up to $6,000 per passenger and the loss of landing rights. Washington made it clear this week that they will enforce the fines, and so airlines will be forced to get passengers to sign waivers permitting their private information to be shared with American authorities. Passengers on domestic American flights are not involved in the problem because American law already permits PNR disclosure.

Frattini’s recent comments to the European Parliament suggest that a deal remains far off. “I believe that this new agreement under negotiation with the United States should have the same content, and include the same level of safeguards,” Frattini said, adding that it should continue to provide “legal certainty for air carriers, the respect of human rights, notably the right to privacy and the purposes for which the passenger name record data may be used.”

-read more in Constant Brand’s AP report