EU Agrees to Share Airline Passenger Data with US

securitas writes "The European Union has agreed to provide the US government with detailed airline passenger data. The agreement allows the collection of 34 pieces of data per person and limits storage of the data to three and a half years. 'The United States originally wanted to collect 60 pieces of data and keep it for 50 years.' Previously, the EU had objected to the plan because it violated EU privacy legislation, the data-protection directive. The plan is similar to the CAPPS II passenger profiling system. The data may be used for 'secondary purposes' other than anti-terrorism measures if requested from US Customs by other law enforcement agencies."

Comments

I've canceled by US trips

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I had planned to attend the FSF annual associate members meeting in Boston in March, but have scrapped that plan due to this legislation. I'll use the money to go to the Libre Software Meeting in France, and FOSDEM in Belgium instead. People shouldn't put up with this crap.

Re:I've canceled by US trips

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Yeh, this is the problem. Boston is a nice place, and I'd love to go over and meet the FSF folks again. But I just don't like funding the regime.

It's like buying CDs. You get the music, and 50cent does go to the artist, but 10 dollars/euros is given the the RIAA.

This was partly explained in the book "Why do people hate America?". (Not a very good book.) To foreigners, America is represented by it's foreign policy, and as a democracy, it's foreign policy is understood to be the will of the people.

In Belgium I met a guy that also wouldn't go to America, his reason was that every dollar he spent would be paying for an American bullet in a foreign country.

It's not personal. I don't dislike Americans.

In a few years time, the EU could be as bad, and I'd understand then if people said they didn't want to come to the EU. But I wouldn't leave the EU, I'll stay and fix it, like I hope Americans will fix America.

Sheesh

[the Man in Black]

The data may be used for 'secondary purposes' other than anti-terrorism measures if requested from US Customs by other law enforcement agencies."

Like McDonald's late-night security guards. Or anyone who whips up some FBI letterhead and sends a fax. You'd be surprised how easily organizations will fling about our beverage selections and hotel porno rentals without a care for our privacy or their sense of morality.

Can anyone think of any act, any act at all, where a United States citizen is guaranteed privacy by law? Are phone calls with your lawyer and conversations with your psychiatrist still honored, or is that gone too?

Hm. I wonder if I can get Ted Kennedy's hotel porno rentals. Anyone got a template for FBI letterhead?

well

[sofar]

Do we European get the US data too then ??????

My experience

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I stopped visiting US last year .. It's just too much of a hassle with their "Patriot Act" and all the privacy invasions.

I went to Boston in march 2003. There were four check points between the plane and the outside of the airport. At the second checkpoint, the security guy ran out of forms for me to fill out so he let me pass without filling in a form.

When I got to the next checkpoint, I was taken aside by two cops and asked loads of questions because I didn't have the form from the previous checkpoint. Clearly I was a good candidate for terrorism. The questions were pointlessly invasive (my job, my annual wage!, my country of origin, any family in the US, etc.). I didn't mind giving the answers (I could have lied), but it was such a stupid process.

What conclusions could they possibly draw from my verbal answer to "What is your annual income?". I'm sure Bin Laden would really be caught out by that one :-)

Re:My experience

[apatrick]

It is my understanding that the purpose of questions like "your job" and "your annual wage" and "any family in the US" is to determine your likelihood of LEAVING the US. That is, the screening is to prevent illegal immigration, and to not search for terrorists per se.

And does anyone seriously believe

[gillbates]

That the US will delete this data when the three years are over? More likely, it will be "removed" from one database only to go into another more classified database at the NSA or FBI.

welcome to the land of the free

[MadMirko]

... with "free" of course meaning that authorities freely access any information about anyone.

Don't think that only data from non-americans is collected, it is data from anyone coming in via an European airline.

It's disappointing to see that the American public doesn't give a damn, and even more that the European Parliament is likely to give in to another US bullying.

My last flight was my last flight

[bitty]

It was our honeymoon to Hawaii, so there wasn't much choice there. We drive everywhere now, the hassle and total invasion of our privacy just isn't worth it. In one airport, they even had me put one foot on this "detector", that for all I know did absolutely nothing. It was just a box with an opaque piece of white plexiglass with the outline of a foot that said "place foot here". No wires coming out of it at all, and it didn't appear to be plugged in. The security guy just watched me do it and said thank you. My wife and I were both pulled aside and searched twice each way by very rude people that seemed more interested in our undergarments than actually looking for anything dangerous.

Screw 'em. I'll spend my money elsewhere.