Passenger Data Protection rights crushed by the Queen with help from sleeping MP's

The failure of the EU/US talks on transfer of passenger data will not affect UK passengers, as the UK Gubment / Department of Transport have issed a Navigation Order. (BBC)

The BBC quote a DoT spokesman who said: "We took out an air navigation order so planes could have a legal basis for data transfer while the EU-level talks are ongoing.

"It's a patch, if you like."

Paul Charles, Virgin Atlantic's director of communications, said the British government had good foresight to put the legal patch in place.

"They took it on that if there was not a deal between the EU and the US then this patch could take effect.

"It means airlines can carry on as normal as if the argument had never occurred and the agreement was not about to run out."

"It means airlines can go on providing the passenger data that the US require without facing possible legal action." ... and trampling over citizen's rights to data privacy.

What he naively overlooked, is the fact that yet again the Gubment, by simply issuing a piece of paper have trodden on statutory rights of UK citizens under EU Directives of Data Protection.

Here is relevant part of the Order which inserts a new article 141A into the Air Navigation Order 2005.... which The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 19th day of July 2005 with the advice of Her Privy Council had ordered.

2006 No. 2316 / CIVIL AVIATION
The Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2006 Made - - - - 5th September 2006 /Laid before Parliament 7th September 2006 / Coming into force - - 30th September 2006
At the Court at Balmoral, the 5th day of September 2006
Present, The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council
Her Majesty, in exercise of the powers conferred upon Her by sections 60(1), (2)(b), (3)(h) and (4), 61(1)(a) and 102(2)(b) of, and paragraph 2 of Part 3 of Schedule 13 to, the Civil Aviation Act 1982(a), is pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to order as follows:

Citation and commencement
1. This Order may be cited as the Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2006 and shall come into force on 30th September 2006.

141A.—(1) The Secretary of State may give a direction to any person who is an operator of an aircraft referred to in paragraph (2) requiring him to take the action referred to in
paragraph (3)......

(3) The action referred to in paragraph (1) is the making available electronically of data in
respect of all passengers and crew on the aircraft or expected to be on the aircraft.

WHAT IS AN ORDER IN COUNCIL ?

An Order-in-Council is effectively a species of statutory instrument (which are regulated by the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 in the UK), albeit subject to more formalities than a simple statutory instrument. They are simply law making by decree. Like all statutory instruments, they may either be annulled in pursuance of a resolution of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords ('negative resolution procedure') or require to be approved by a resolution of either House, or, exceptionally, both ('affirmative resolution procedure').

With devolution these powers have been preserved , the Scotland Act 1998 provides that draft Orders-in-Council may be laid before the Scottish Parliament in certain circumstances in the same way as they would have been laid before the Westminster Parliament . In Wales from 2007 legislation put before the Welsh Assembly will be enacted through Orders-in-Council after following the affirmative resolution procedure.

Orders-in-Council were controversially used in 2004 to attempt to overturn a court ruling in England which held that the exile of the Ilois islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory was unlawful. However The judges, Lord Justice Hooper and Mr Justice Cresswell, were scathing in their assessment of British policy, concluding on May 11th 2006 holding that these Orders-in-Council were unlawful, saying "The suggestion that a minister can, through the means of an order in council, exile a whole population from a British Overseas Territory and claim that he is doing so for the 'peace, order and good government' of the territory is to us repugnant."

The decision has constitutional implications, calling into question the use of the royal prerogative. The orders in council followed a High Court decision in November 2000 which overturned a 1971 immigration ordnance that banned the islanders from their homes. Robin Cook, the then Foreign Secretary, accepted the decision and set up a feasibility study into re-populating the islands. But after intense US pressure, the Government issued the orders in council. In a conciliatory gesture earlier this year, the Foreign Office chartered a ship to take 100 islanders back to their homes to tend the graves of relatives.

The judges ruled that orders in council were not immune to judicial scrutiny because, although they derived from the residual powers vested in the monarch, they were in reality the creation of ministers.

They declared: "The decision was in reality that of the Foreign Secretary, not of Her Majesty, and is subject to challenge by way of judicial review in the ordinary way."

So you will hear all day on the State Broadcasting Service, how smart the Gubment have been by having handily skirted the EU Directives to protect the privacy of your personal information, the efforts of negotiators to protect those rights to privacy. No "Chaos at Airports " headlines for them.... and not a whisper of criticism how the citizens rights have been disregarded and trampled on.

Those who try to protect our liberties, might wonder why they bother, when by simply interrupting the holiday arrangements of Her Most Excellent Majesty at Balmoral, the Gubment can simply ridde roughshod over their rights enshrined in law, simply to meet the demands of another nation and how our supine legislators and elected representatives just let it all simply slide by.

On top of that Paul Charles, Virgin Atlantic's director of communications, can point to the triumph of the British Gubments foresight in indulging in this quaint legal jiggery pokery about Her Most Excellent Majesty at Balmoral and the BBC can pass on his constituional expertise to you unquestioned and unexplained. (The BBC4 Radio News at 7.00 am described these long planned arrangements as "temporary" ...Ho. Ho. Ho.)

Thus are your rights frittered away.

USEFUL LINK

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.

CHAGOS ISLANDERS

So what has la Beckett (variously described as Foreign Secretary), done about the scathing indictment of HMG policy and the theft of the homes of the Chagos Islanders, by Lord Justice Hooper and Mr Justice Cresswell in the High Court on May 11th 2006 ?

Absolutely Fuck all.