By Loreline Merelle
The EU is not starting from scratch when it comes to collecting personal data. Since the attacks in Madrid in 2004, airlines have been obliged to transmit the name, nationality, date of birth and point of departure for every passenger to the member state where their flight lands or face sanctions. However, those who support the European Commission's proposal for a Passenger Name Record (PNR) say that this information – regulated by Directive 2004/82/EC -
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British lobbying
In 2003, two years before the bombings on the London transport network, Tony Blair’s government had launched ‘E-borders’, an ambitious ten-year programme which allowed the British authorities to gradually extend their controls over the personal data of UK passengers. The UK upheld this as a model for a European legal framework, and indeed, in 2007 Commissioner Franco Frattini published his first proposal - but the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty nipped the UK’s aspirations in the bud. However, by adopting an ‘opt-in’ for the measure, they fought for key posts in the European Parliament. Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope became rapporteur for the text in 2011, while Labour’s Claude Moraes took over the presidency of the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE), which is in charge of the PNR, in 2014. To this day, however, only the UK has access to a functioning PNR system.
