EU 'feeble' on data protection

3.44.16pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 6th Sep 2006

Ahead of a European Parliament debate, Liberal Democrat European Justice Spokeswoman Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP says the unacceptable feebleness of the EU, notably in the face of US pressure, to downgrade privacy protection for personal details of air passengers is symptomatic of a general laxness.

MEPs will debate a report on renewed negotiations for an agreement with the US on the transfer of passenger name records (PNR) data allegedly to be used in the fight against terrorism and serious crime, following the European Court's quashing of the previous agreement.

Sarah Ludford commented:

"The Council and Commission threaten to lay waste to our civil liberties. Combating terrorism and trans-national crime is crucial to our security, but so is the privacy of our personal data. The EU-US agreement must have greater safeguards against abuse and the Council must urgently agree the long-awaited EU law on privacy of security data."

"The US agreement is being negotiated without any parliamentary involvement or judicial oversight. This is part of a worrying trend towards making law outside the EU framework and lowering standards of scrutiny."

Referring to decisions taken at the informal meeting of EU ministers in London in mid-August, Sarah Ludford added:

"Commissioner Frattini must tell us more about his plans for an EU PNR and 'positive profiling' policy - whatever that means - that we had to hear about through the media. The European Parliament has already rejected such an idea in the past."

Notes to Editors

PNR data involves the transfer of 34 pieces of data ranging from credit card information, billing address and contact phone numbers to our travel history, meal and room preferences. The aim of this appears to be not targeted identification of suspects but fishing expeditions based on 'profiling' of what kind of behaviour or characteristics terrorists might exhibit. It raise all sorts of civil liberties dangers, from race and religious discrimination to misidentification and tarring by association, with nightmare consequences for travellers in the future.