US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff visited the European Parliament on 14 May 2007 to convince MEPs that gathering private data on passengers flying from Europe to America is crucial in fighting terrorism.
However, the MEPs in the Civil Liberties Committee continued to doubt US methods.
At the heart of discussions are the questions of how long US authorities should be able to use data about passengers, when it should be destroyed and which government agencies should have access to the sensitive information.
Chertoff wants the new agreement to allow the US to hold onto the information longer than under the current deal – three-and-a-half years for data that has not been accessed and eight years for other data – arguing that terrorists plan their plots over several years.
He also wants counter-terror agencies to be able to access the information directly from airline computers. European countries, on the other hand, insist airlines must transmit the information themselves and that it may only be disclosed to US law- enforcement agencies for use in anti-terror investigations if those agencies have similar data protection standards to the EU.
They also want the data to be made anonymous unless it matches a profile in a terrorist database.
The summer deadline now looms and, without an agreement, European airlines will be forced to choose between facing lawsuits in Europe for breaching EU data-privacy rules or being fined up to €4,700 or denied landing rights in the US for refusing to pass on information.
