EU and U.S. negotiators were to try anew Thursday to seal an agreement to protect the privacy of air passengers with Washington demanding more routine access to personal data for its anti-terrorism agencies than under a deal that lapsed last week.
EU officials said they shared Washington's "legitimate" concerns about terrorism, but demanded strict data protection guarantees in return for a more routine sharing of personal details of air passengers among US government law enforcement officials.
A 2004 trans-Atlantic air passenger privacy deal - which the EU high court voided last May for technical reasons - lapsed after negotiators missed an Oct. 1 deadline.
Washington has pledged to protect the privacy of air passengers in accordance with the lapsed accord until a new deal is in place.
Negotiations collapsed last week when EU negotiators - seeking a simple replacement accord - could not agree to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's request for a more routine sharing of passenger data among U.S. law enforcement agencies.
The EU justice ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, were to approve a new accord Friday if they get satisfactory data protection guarantees from Washington, officials said.
On Thursday, EU and American negotiators were to have negotiations by video-link starting at 1300GMT and the 25 EU ambassadors were to have a late night session to assess the result.
Reaching a new deal is an EU priority to ensure airlines can continue to legally submit 34 pieces of data about passengers flying from Europe to U.S. destinations. 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.
Washington has warned that airlines failing to share passenger data face fines of up to US$6,000 (euro4,700) per passenger and the loss of landing rights
Privacy restrictions tend to be stricter in Europe than in the United States. Chertoff has complained this limits "the ability of (American) counterterrorism officials to gain broad access to data of this sort."
An EU diplomat, who asked not to be named, said Washington wants to be able to share data with more law enforcement agencies and the right to access airline reservation systems to search for passenger data. The Europeans want airlines to make the data available. Also under negotiation is the way in which the United States will store passenger data.
Under the lapsed agreement, data on passengers flying to the United States is relayed to US Customs and Border Protection officials who cannot routinely share it with other Department of Homeland Security agencies, nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The deal that is being renegotiated is, in fact, an interim agreement. The EU and the U.S. hope to conclude a permanent accord next year, one that would also reflect the views of the European Parliament.
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