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EU: Travel surveillance and passenger profiling: Commission letter to European Parliament tries to justify PNR Directive
13 March 2015
Two European Commissioners have written to the European Parliament to try to justify, on the basis of the Court of Justice's ruling on data retention, the proposed Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive that would require the mandatory surveillance by law enforcement agencies of all air travel within the EU.
Letter from Frans Timmermans and Dimitris Avramopoulos (pdf):
"The Commission would like to respond to the resolution of the European Parliament of 11 February 2015 concerning the consequences of the judgment of the Court of Justice on the Data Retention Directive and its possible impact on the proposed EU Directive on Passenger Name Records (PNR)."
See:
EP resolution on anti-terrorism (pdf)
The Commissioners' letter argues that:
"The collection of PNR from a person that takes an international flight - and is therefore already registered for border control purposes - reveals, in principle, less about that person's privacy than having his or her phone calls or internet connections registered."
If law enforcement agencies are automatically provided with knowledge of your movements - not to mention the other data that is included in Passenger Name Records - does it really reveal "in principle, less" about your privacy than communications surveillance?
Furthermore, argues the letter: "PNR also only concerns a more narrow set of persons and is therefore less indiscriminate than data retention".
It hardly needs to be said that "less indiscriminate" is not the same thing as "indiscriminate". In any case, that "more narrow set of persons" is everyone on planes entering, leaving or flying within the EU, and in the future potentially everyone travelling by rail or boat in the EU.
The Commissioners also suggest that: "the processing of PNR data does not risk interfering with any obligation of professional secrecy." This may not necessarily be true. As Edward Hasbrouck has pointed out:
"If an airline gives a discount to members of a political organization, trade union, or other group attending a convention or meeting, for example, each PNR and ticket for a member who receives the discount typically includes some unique code."
See:
Wikileaks publishes CIA reports on travel ID checks (Papers, Please!, link)
Background (Statewatch articles)
Travel surveillance: PNR by the back door
MEMBER STATES CALL FOR SWIFT ADOPTION OF EU-PNR SCHEME
G6 meeting leads to renewed calls for travel surveillance
EU-PNR SCHEME: UK seeking to extend Commission proposal to cover intra-EU flights from the start