MEPs want limits to passenger data sharing with US
(BRUSSELS) - Europe's Parliament Thursday called for caution in exchanging airline passenger data with the United States, Canada and Australia, insisting swaps be limited to terror and criminal probes.
The European Parliament agreed by a large majority that the European Union open negotiations with the United States, Canada and Australia on sharing passenger data "to prevent and combat terrorism and other serious transnational crime".
But MEPs threw up a series of restrictions aimed at protecting fundamental rights.
The resolution said the parliament demanded proof "that the collection, storage, and processing of PNR (passenger name record) data is necessary for each of the stated purposes."
It also called for the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, "to explore less intrusive alternatives" and said PNR data "shall in no circumstances be used for data mining or profiling".
Protecting personal data has long been an irritant in Brussels-Washington ties and will lurk in the background of an EU-US summit in Lisbon next week.
A general EU-US data swapping agreement is currently in the offing as is a new agreement on sharing passenger flight data (PNR), but parliament has a right of veto.
Commenting on the fraught issue ahead of the November 20 summit, the US ambassador to the EU, William Kennard, said this week that "it's not true the United States doesn't care about privacy."
"We share the same values, it's not right that there's always a trade-off between privacy and security" he said. "We have to come to a common recognition of our privacy regimes."
Further information, European Parliament: