Fergie's Tech Blog

European Citizens Have More Privacy Rights in U.S. Tracking System Than U.S. Citizens

Ryan Singel writes on 27B Stroke 6:

There's been a long-standing and typically European bureaucratic battle between the United States and the European Union over having airline passenger records sent from flights originating in E.U. countries that are headed to the United States. It's mostly crap that revolves around the Europeans having a stricter data protection law that they never enforce, but like to pretend is better than U.S. rules.

But they did strike a deal that gives E.U. citizens some measures of protection and limitations that U.S. citizens do not enjoy when it comes to the Automated Targeting System. (I won't bore you with the details of the negotiations, but the most recent agreement simply continues the original 2004 agreement.)

In short, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol get fewer fields of data on E.U. citizens, can't get at data that could show ethnicity, racial origin, health problems, political affiliation or union membership, can't share the data very widely with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and must destroy the data in years rather than four decades.

DHS spokesman Jarrod Agen declined to comment on why that E.U. citizens have significantly higher data protection rights than U.S. persons, since he disagreed with the characterization.

posted by Fergie @ 12/13/2006 05:54:00 PM