The Article 29 Working Party, an independent European advisory
body on data protection and privacy, has published a report
containing instructions for travel operators on how to deal with
the controversial issue of passenger name records (PNR).
Since the terrorist attacks in the US of 11th September 2001 US
security agencies have insisted on being provided with much of the
personal information held by airlines on every passenger from
Europe entering the country.
Airlines and the European Commission agreed a deal whereby 34
pieces of information are passed to the US. That deal was opposed
by the European Parliament and was judged by the European Court of
Justice to be illegal on a technicality. A new, almost identical
deal was put in place last autumn.
"Airlines, travel agents and computer reservation systems are
still not providing information to passengers on transatlantic
flights about the collection and transfer of their PNR in a
consistent and satisfactory way," said the report. "To tackle this,
the Working Party is providing guidance in this opinion about the
way in which this information should be provided."
The Working Party wants all passengers to be informed about the
data sharing scheme, in accordance with data protection law. One of
the problems appears to be some confusion about whose role it is to
inform passengers about the scheme.
"The airline determines how and why the personal data are
processed, and as such is the controller of the data processing,"
said the Working Party, in relation to tickets bought directly from
airlines. "The Working Party therefore considers that the
information should be provided primarily by the airline selling the
flight ticket."
The Working Party wants there to be consistency in the
application of data protection laws. "The obligation to inform the
data subject is a responsibility of data controllers, and it should
be carried out in accordance with the national legislation they are
subject to," said the Working Party's report.
"As the US requests for transfers of PNR data affect all
airlines in a similar way, the Working Party considers that there
is a real need for coherence in the content of the information that
should be provided to passengers and in the time and way in which
that information is delivered," it said.
The arrangement in autumn last year was only an interim
arrangement made to comply with a deadline which was missed by a
few days. A new agreement is expected to be made between the US
government and the European Commission this year, and initial
reports last year suggested that it should be in place by
summer.
