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The previous agreement adopted in 2004 on EU-US personal data sharing was annulled by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in May 2006, invoking the wrong legal basis. After a series of negotiations between UE and US a new interim agreement was concluded on 6 October 2006.

The old agreement was kept in force by the Court decision until 30 September. This explains the rush of the EU and US officials in agreeing on a new decision. From the privacy point of view, the new agreement is worse than the previous act.

According with the new deal, 34 types of passenger data - including names, telephone numbers, addresses, credit card information, bank account numbers, email addresses, type of meals served on board and other details of their reservation for US - will be send to the US authorities.

The agreement foresees that the US officials will not "pull" the information from airlines computers, but the data will be "pushed", so the data will be much more easily accessible. The data should be sent by the airlines to the US authorities databases within 15 minutes after of a plane takes off from an EU country to US. It appears that the new "push" system would be tested before the end of the year.

Following the pressure from the US authorities, the PNR data will be available also to several US counter-terrorism agencies, if they have "comparable standards of data protection " with EU as the Commissioner Frattini underlined. The carriers who do not provide the right information are liable for fines up to 5 000 EUR/passenger or even the withdrawal of the landing rights.

The new deal will be formally approved by the Justice Ministers across EU that should meet later this week. This agreement will be in force until the end of July 2007, but new negotiations for a permanent deal will probably begin in November.

A lot of criticism to the PNR interim deal occurred soon from the civil rights groups, but also from members of the European Parliament. Cem Ozdemir (DE-Greens) considered : "It is disturbing that the EU capitulated to US demands to allow more agencies access the data."

Sophie In't Veld (NL, ALDE group), the EP rapporteur on PNR issues, has planned a public debate on the matter for 11 October during the plenary session of the Parliament. Ms. Veld has also sent a letter to Commissioner Frattini asking him to clarify a series of issues of the PNR deal for this debate.

Passenger information row settled (6.10.2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6129789,00.html

EU and US strike deal on air passenger data (6.10.2006)
http://euobserver.com/9/22590

Passenger data deal for US and EU (6.10.2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5412092.stm

EU-USA Agreement on PNR : EU put in danger the saftey of European citizens and residents (only in French, 6.10.2006)
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-pnr1006.html

Letter from Sophie In't Veld to Commissioner Frattini asking a series of questions on the agreement (10.06.2006)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2006/oct/eu-us-pnr-letter-to-commission...

Transfer of passenger name records (PNR) : the new agreement between the EU and the USA is an unacceptable infringement of the respect for human rights and data protection (9.10.06)
English version
http://www.aedh.net/eng/index.php?cat=com_ex&com=last&com_id=9...
French Version
http://www.aedh.net/index.php?cat=com_ex&com=last&com_id=91

EDRI-gram : EU-US agreement on passenger data transfer annulled (7.06.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.11/pnr