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.

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 :-)

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.