Fergie's Tech Blog

Air Passenger Data Privacy Spat Worsens

Matthias Gebauer writes on Businessweek:

The post-Sept. 11 flight data sharing agreement between the US and EU expires in July. But a new agreement is nowhere in sight. The Americans want to know even more, and the Europeans want to tell them even less.

Michael Chertoff's logic sounded convincing. Earlier this week, the US Secretary of Homeland Security provided the European Parliament with a succinct explanation as to how the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks could have been prevented. Had US authorities already been in possession of the so-called Passenger Name Record (PNR) -- which includes 34 items of data about every person travelling to the US -- before the attacks, Chertoff said, then 11 out of the 19 hijackers would have been denied entrance to the US. Consequently, Chertoff said, 9/11 would probably never have happened.

posted by Fergie @ 5/18/2007 05:31:00 PM