Interior ministers approve data deal with US

Agreement on airline passenger data said to have tighter privacy safeguards, but MEPs are not convinced.

National interior ministers meeting in Brussels today (13 December) have approved the signing of a new agreement between the European Union and the United States on the sharing of passenger name record data.

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The controversial agreement is expected to be signed tomorrow, but before it can take effect it will require the backing of MEPs, as well as the formal support of the EU’s member states.

MEPs have made it clear that the agreement will face intense scrutiny in the Parliament. It was the Parliament’s stance that forced the European Commission to renegotiate a previous agreement from 2007. 

Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, issued his opinion on the new agreement today, just hours before the interior ministers approved its signing. He found that the 15-year retention period foreseen in the new deal was “excessive”; that the limitation of the purpose of the agreement, to cases of terrorism or serious crime, was “too broad”; that the list of data to be transferred was “disproportionate”; and that provisions on the onward transfer of data by the US Department for Homeland Security were not tight enough.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP, said: “This agreement fails to address the fundamental rights concerns repeatedly raised by the European Parliament and various European courts. It is particularly ironic that ministers should take this decision today, the same day that the European Data Protection Supervisor has outlined concerns with the agreement and its incompatibility with EU law.”