To create such a system, the department of Franco Frattini considers it expedient to study the experience of the US. The European Commissioner plans to present specific proposals as early as this autumn. However, in recent days his press secretary confirmed that relevant negotiations are already underway both at the level of interior ministers of EU countries and with agencies overseeing the use of citizens' personal data.
According to Franco Frattini's plans, in the future personal data of airline passengers on all international flights at all EU airports should be collected and analyzed. Transit passengers changing from one plane to another will not be an exception. But that's not all. 'If it turns out to be expedient, we can extend this practice to intra-European flights,' explained the European Commissioner's representative. True, at the same time Frattini nonetheless promised not to collect, as he put it, 'sensitive information' about citizens.
Thus, another step by Europeans towards tightening the system of covert surveillance of citizens may become quite real. However, the European Commissioner's press secretary emphasizes: 'Mr. Frattini will also ensure the creation of a solid legal basis for his proposals.'
Franco Frattini proposes to introduce within Europe the practice of controlling passengers' personal data that has existed until the beginning of October for flights from EU countries to the US. US authorities require the transfer to them no later than 15 minutes before departure of aircraft data including dozens of items – passengers' phone numbers, credit card numbers, addresses of last residence, etc. An agreement on this was signed with the Americans back in 2004, and airlines are forced to follow these requirements from across the ocean. Otherwise, the US authorities will without discussion revoke the necessary licenses for their aircraft to land at American airports.
As it turned out, this agreement on the transfer of personal data of passengers of European airlines precisely lacked that 'solid legal basis.' At the end of May this year, the European Court of Justice declared such practice, as well as the agreement with the Americans itself, illegal. By October the agreement will be terminated. But, as has now become known, a new – modified – agreement with the Americans will be in force instead. In the US demands to provide information within the so-called PNR – Passenger Name Records – absolutely nothing has changed. Only now, almost the same set of personal data of airline passengers, if the plans of European Commissioner Franco Frattini are destined to become reality, may also be recorded by the authorities of EU countries.
'Currently, data within the PNR information is sent to the American side from Europe on 34-36 items,' said Martin Gaebges, Secretary General of the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany (BARIG), to Vremya Novostey. (This organization, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, represents and supports the interests of over 100 passenger and cargo airlines conducting commercial activities in Germany; it includes the Russian Aeroflot – Ed.) 'There is no legal basis for this, and no new developments in this direction are visible yet. This cannot but cause us, air carriers, some concern. After all, none of us knows who this impressive set of data about our passengers is sent to, where and how long it is stored in computer memory. We also do not know which authorities in the US have access to it and for what purposes.'
And this is just one aspect of covert surveillance of passengers that causes concern for Martin Gaebges. There is also another significant circumstance: the increase in the cost of transporting each passenger. 'For a long time, the question of who should bear the costs associated with the complication and tightening of the system for collecting passenger personal data has been debated,' noted the newspaper's interlocutor. 'After all, because of this, the time for checking in each passenger increases by an average of two to three minutes. We feel quite uncomfortable in front of passengers who are clearly dissatisfied with such service.' The head of BARIG is convinced that despite the external 'spectacularness' of such measures, they do not overall solve the problem of the terrorist threat. 'There can be no 100% security in our business, otherwise we would have to leave all planes on the ground,' says Gaebges. 'And the fight against terrorism must begin on the ground, not when the bandits are already in the air.'
It is hard to disagree with this. Meanwhile, terrorists have managed to so 'terrorize' the civilized world that in fighting this evil, it is ready to depart from the basic postulate of democracy – the inviolability and confidentiality of private life.