The European Council and EU governments agreed last week to a provisional proposal for a directive that will once in effect oblige airlines to hand over their passengers’ data to EU countries upon arrival or departure in order to help authorities fight terrorism and serious transnational crime.
If the scheme is approved, each member state will be required to set up a Passenger Information Unit which will receive the PNR data from the air carriers and will store the information for six months.
“The compromise agreed will enable the EU to set up an effective PNR system which fully respects fundamental rights and freedoms,” said Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider, also President of the Council.
“In a constructive spirit, member-states consented to keep the retention period of the data to six months,” he added.
In the meantime, the EU’s Civil Liberties Committee and relevant bodies are scheduled to meet on December 17 to further discuss the directive. Once adopted, member states will have two years to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with the said directive.
David Cameron discussed the scheme with Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, in London on Tuesday when the two men met for talks on the renegotiation of terms of the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union.
“The Prime Minister said he was pleased that the Council and the Parliament had agreed in principle on a deal and called on the European Parliament to approve the agreement as soon as possible,” Downing Street said in a statement.
Following last month’s lethal attacks in Paris which claimed 130 lives the European Union began talks on creating a set of laws regulating Passenger Name Record (PNR) information exchange that would include passengers’ flight dates, credit card numbers, names and seat numbers.
The PNR legislative proposal had previously been rejected by the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee in 2013.
