Date published: 2006/05/30
The BBC says:
The European Court of Justice has blocked an EU-US agreement that requires airlines to transfer passenger data to the US authorities.
The court said the decision to hand over the data was not founded on an "appropriate legal basis".
European airlines have given US authorities passengers' names, addresses and credit card details.
The US said the data would help fight terrorism, but the European Parliament said the data could be misused.
The agreement demands that within 15 minutes of take-off for the United States, a European airline must send the US authorities 34 items of personal information about the passengers on board.
Washington had warned that it would impose heavy fines and deny landing rights for any airline failing to comply with the agreement.
The US authorities also said passengers would be subject to long security checks on arrival, if the data was not sent in advance.
The US demanded tighter airline security worldwide after the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by suicide hijackers.
But the European Parliament consistently opposed handing over the passenger details to the US, arguing that the US did not guarantee adequate levels of data protection.
It asked the European Court of Justice to annul the deal.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court found that the EU Council of Ministers' decision to sign the agreement on "Passenger Name Records" lacked an adequate legal basis.
The Council and the European Commission based their actions on the EU Data Protection Directive, but the court said the directive did not apply to data collected for security purposes.
It gave the EU until 30 September 2006 to find a new legal solution.
Well that last bit is the get out clause. And it's hard to see America blinking before Europe does. And have MEPs (or pretty much anyone else) stopped travelling to America because of these rules? Of course with all this increased security and data trawling the odds are much higher that innocent people will be incorrectly fingered (and even jailed) rather than guilty people being caught. But that is the post-9/11 mentality of the American government (and British one as well).
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