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Date: 2004-01-15
PNR: EU-Kommissar Bolkesteins Doubletalk-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- Bolkestein has concealed important details on the draft agreement reached with the USA on the transfer of Passenger Name Record Data (PNR) to the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection when reporting to two Committees of the European Parliament four weeks ago. At that time, Commissioner Bolkestein claimed that the use of EU citizen's personal data in the CAPPS-II system was explicitly exempt from the agreement a negotiation group he headed had reached with U.S. authorities. According to Commissioner Bolkestein , this exclusion was prerequisite to the Commission's agreement to the transfer of PNR data to the U.S.: "The arrangement will not cover the US Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System (CAPPS II)." And: "In concluding my last round of discussions with Mr Ridge, I informed him that in the light of the narrower uses for PNR, the exclusion for now of CAPPS II and all the other improvements they had made, I was prepared to propose that the Commission make a finding of adequate protection with regard to transfers of PNR to the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection." "We have", Mr. Todd now said in an interview with German public television station /WDR/, "agreed that the TSA may use data for testing purposes. But that includes an obligation not to use the data operationally, to delete them after the test phase and not to pass them on to third parties." It is entirely unclear, however, how the Commission wants to make sure that the deletion will happen and the data is indeed merely used for testing purposes. Last week already, EDRi revealed that the U.S. side saw the agreement as covering the use of EU citizen's data "to test - and only to test - CAPPS II". On the same occasion, an official of the U.S Department of Homeland Security pointed out: "We also stated publicly that we will immediately begin follow-on discussions with the EU in order to establish a framework for the transfer of PNR data for use by CAPPS II operations once the system has been fully developed and deployed." Mr. Todd now admitted this statement correctly reflected the concessions made by Commissioner Bolkestein to the U.S. side: We are already in talks with the Americans concerning which security measures must be met if PNR data is to be used in CAPPS-II. We hope to find an agreement as soon as possible once the U.S. Congress has approved CAPPS-II." Andreas Dietl, EU Affairs Director of European Digital Rights, declares: /It is a shame that Commissioner Bolkestein has tried to mislead the European Parliament on the nature of the draft agreement dealt out with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is now clear that the Commission has agreed to the abuse of EU citizen's personal data to test a surveillance system that in its very nature is against the principles of EU data protection legislation. The claim by the U.S. that the data used for testing purposes will be deleted thereafter is merely a joke: The data will still be available in the Computerized Reservation System (CRS), where it can be accessed by government agencies at any time. It is also clear that the Commissioner has given to understand to the American side that personal data of EU citizens may soon even be fed into this CAPPS-II system when it will be operational, even though the U.S. openly plan to interlink CAPPS-II with the even broader US-VISIT surveillance system, the main purpose of which is to provide U.S. secret services with as much data on anyone visiting the USA as possible. According to internal papers recently revealed, personal data will be stockpiled in this system for 100 years. In not mentioning this side agreement, Commissioner Bolkestein has come close to lying to the Parliament. If the Commission does not stop the transfer of personal data from the EU now, it is time to take them to the European Court of Justice for breach of Article 25 of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. Source http://www.edri.org/ - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- edited by Harkank published on: 2004-01-15 comments to [email protected] subscribe Newsletter - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- 
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