EU Traveller Data Transfer to US talks break down - Airport chaos looms throughout EU

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on May 30th said the practice of US authorities to demand that airlines provide passengers' personal data ( the The Passenger Name Record (PNR) ) to American security officials(established by The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 19th November 2001 ) , including credit card information and telephone numbers , meal types, is illegal. Will travel chaos grip airports ?

There are approximately 20-25 possible fields of PNR data, some of which include subsets of information, expanding the total to approximately 60 fields and sub-fields.

The ECJ Court held that the agreement was illegal because it exceeded the scope ofArticle 25 of the Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24th October 1995) which provides that personal data may only be transferred from the EU to third countries if the specific country ensures an adequate level of protection.

Negotiations to circumvent this ECJ decision were due to be complete today , but have broken down without a solution that satisfies the US authorities. Any such arrangements from today are voided by the ECJ decision.

Airlines refusing to provide PNR data to the US may lose landing rights but those that do, take the risk of facing legal action under EU member states' data protection legislation.

BBC 24 report that EU Transport Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said attempts to resolve the deadlock would continue.

"We will be discussing this at the highest political levels to see how we can take if forward. There is an imperative to sort it out sooner rather than later," he said.

Will travel chaos grip airports ?

In the event that no agreement is reached by 1 October - i.e in 1 hour from now, EU member states could sign bilateral agreements with the US. Failing this, airlines could do deals with the US authorities which would likely result in chaos at airports because they would have to seek the consent of individual passengers to supply and transfer their data. "Any [granting of permission for a] transfer of data by airlines would have to be supplied by each individual... they would have to read and fill out a questionnaire at the airport. It would be a very difficult situation," said Wim Nauwelaerts, a lawyer at Hogan & Hartson in Brussels earlier this week.

It is entirely possible that passengers would also be horrified to discover what passenger information has been routinely being transferred about them for years.... something that MEP's, the Guardians of the public's trust might not be too happy to become common knowledge ... a fudge may be in the offing but the Dutch and Italians are said to be very unhappy with the current arrangements.

If your are travelling from the EU to the USA from midnight, expect problems.

It has become known since writing this that the UK Gubment have already arranged over 4 weeks ago for this to happen and unilaterally made arrangements by asking her Most Excellent Majesty the Queen to isue an order allowing the information to continue to be provided.

Mike McNamara,(beasleyspace) an IT consultant provides a fascinating and very detailed, annotated list of all the 34 PNR information fields currently supplied here including your full Credit Card number, meal preference - curiously Halal and Kosher information is not recorded, but vegetarian meals are,as religiously determined diet could be considered "ethnically identifiable information" !

He also provides some very useful links and research providing much more information and comment on the subject.