Via UPI:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is set to lose some of its current access to passenger information from European airlines.
Under a new agreement between the United States and the European Union, European airlines won't be required to share as much information on their passengers with the department as previously.
The new agreement on Passenger Name Record, or PNR, data, effective as of Jan. 1, 2008, stipulates that the department will no longer have the right to access 34 PNR data per passenger in the airlines' databases. Instead the airlines will be required to give the department 19 PNR data per passenger.
"The EU welcomes the new agreement, which will help to prevent and combat terrorism and serious transnational crime, whilst ensuring an adequate level of protection of passengers' personal data in line with European standards on fundamental rights and privacy," the European Commission said in a press release on Monday. Read more...
You may recall Nonny Mouse's nightmare story and the story I posted earlier in the week about the outrageous requests from Homeland Security seeking religious, sexual and political data on all passengers flying into international airports in the U.S..This is great news from the EU. They have a much better track record when it comes to security and intelligence.
