FC: Update on U.S.-Europe negotiations on access to air databases

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

From: Erich M <me () quintessenz at>
Organization: quintessenz
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: EU/US doqument on flight passenger data revealed
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 21:17:15 +0000
User-Agent: KMail/1.4.3

Declan,

FYI: that is what happened last week in Brussels when US Customs met the EU 
foreign department. US-Agencies demand direct access to European flight 
carrier databases. Possible sanctions: no more flights to USA by those EU 
airlines that do not comply.

The process is in the making this week they will meet again.

Here is the story:
 EU-Flugdaten für die NSA
http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=146246

Here is the document:
http://quintessenz.org/pnr.pdf

Excerpts below, feel free to relay. An extended doqument will be published 
by tomorrow, featuring the changes as the original is a MS-Word phile.
Have phun ;)
Erich



EUROPEAN COMMISSION/US CUSTOMS TALKS ON PNR TRANSMISSION BRUSSELS, 17/18 
FEBRUARY JOINT STATEMENT 1. Senior officials of the European Commission and 
the US Administration, led by Director General for External Relations Guy 
Legras and Deputy US Customs Commissioner Douglas Browning, met in Brussels 
on 17/18 February 2003 to find a solution to the problems resulting for 
airlines operating flights to or from the US due to the new Passenger Name 
Record (PNR) transmission requirements contained in the Aviation and 
Transportation Security Act 2001. It was necessary in particular to 
reconcile US requirements with the requirements of data protection law in 
the EU.

[...]

"The United States Customs Service represents that:

- by legal statute (title 49, United States Code, section 44909(c)(3)) and 
its implementing (interim) regulations (title 19, Code of Federal 
Regulations, section 122.49b), air carriers operating passenger flights in 
foreign air transportation to, from or through the United States, must 
provide Customs with electronic access to PNR data contained in the 
automated reservation/ departure control systems ("reservation systems");

[...]

with regard to the PNR data which Customs accesses directly from the air 
carrier's reservation systems, Customs will only view PNR data concerning 
persons whose travel includes a flight into, out of or through the United 
States; -Customs will access air carrier reservation systems as an 
accommodation to the air carriers to obviate the need for costly technical 
changes required to allow the air carriers to transmit the data to Customs; -

[...]

- Customs would take the position in connection with any administrative or 
judicial proceeding arising out of a FOIA request for PNR information, that 
such records are exempt from disclosure under the FOIA;

[...]
- other law enforcement entities may specifically request PNR information 
from Customs and Customs, in its discretion, may provide such information 
for national security or in furtherance of other legitimate law enforcement 
purposes; - for purposes of regulating the dissemination of PNR data which 
may be shared with other law enforcement entities, Customs is considered 
the "owner" of the data and such entities are obligated by the terms of 
disclosure to obtain Customs express authorization for any further 
dissemination (sometimes referred to as the "Third Agency Rule");
--
//
Taeglich frische IT-news http://www.futurezone.orf.at




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