The US and the European Union have struck a new deal for sharing transatlantic airline passenger data. The new interim agreement replaces a 2004 deal ruled illegal for technical reasons by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in May. The agreement followed a transatlantic video conference lasting at least seven hours. EU justice ministers will meet later on Friday to discuss and back the deal. Negotiations were primarily over which information will be shared with the American counter-terrorist organisations such as the FBI or the CIA.
Negotiations collapsed last week, creating a legal vacuum where airlines risked losing landing rights in the US if they did not supply the data or legal action in the EU if they did. The deal involves 34 pieces of data about passengers flying from Europe to US destinations, including addresses, telephone numbers and credit card numbers. The data — including passengers' names, addresses and credit card details — must be transferred to US authorities within 15 minutes of a US-bound flight's departure.
EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said new mechanisms had been agreed to distribute data from airlines to the US, the BBC reported. US officials will now only be able to access data by having information "pushed" from airline computer systems. Previously the US could "pull" data from the systems whenever it was needed. The new accord will expire at the end of July 2007 and negotiations over a permanent deal will start in November. |