EU-U.S. Deal on Airline Passenger Data Could Set World Standard

A deal allowing disclosure of information about travelers on trans-Atlantic flights from the European Union for the United States may serve as a model for nations around the world, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, hailed this month's landmark accord between Brussels and Washington. The agreement, reached after months of wrangling over privacy rights, gives American law enforcement agencies continued access to passenger data on U.S.-bound flights.

"There is a new appreciation in Europe of the risks of terrorism," Baker said. "Earlier assumptions that the U.S. is all about security and that Europe is all about data protection are no longer valid."

The interim deal, valid until July 2007, sought to strike a balance between Washington's campaign against terrorism and European privacy protections concerns. It replaces a 2004 air passenger privacy deal that the EU's high court voided last year for technical reasons.

Washington and Brussels hope to reach a permanent deal next year to replace the interim one.

Under the agreement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will no longer have an automatic right to pull data from European airlines' computer systems, and must instead ask for such information.

"We would like to have a cooperative agreement that will set the standard for the world," Baker said, adding that he expected that "countries outside the U.S. and EU will implement similar systems."

Reaching the new deal had been an EU priority to ensure airlines could continue to legally submit 34 pieces of data about passengers flying from Europe to the United States. Such data - including passengers' names, addresses and credit card details - must be transferred to U.S. authorities within 15 minutes of a flight's departure for the United States.

The U.S. government grants visa-free travel to the citizens of many EU nations, making it difficult to track such passengers arriving in the United States. Although similar agreements exist with Australia, Japan and some other nations, travelers from most other countries routinely have to obtain U.S. visas before they fly to America.

Passenger data collected from the airlines, therefore, "has been a substitute in a way for the visa system," Baker said.

Baker reiterated the U.S. position that the information shared did not represent sensitive private data, because it was willingly supplied by passengers to airlines, travel agents, baggage sorters, customs officials and others.

"This is not information that is routinely withheld ... or a major invasion of privacy," he noted.

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