The European Union has agreed to the US demand to provide American authorities with confidential information about airline passengers arriving in that country. Instead of 60 parameters, they settled on 34. As reported by Gazeta.Ru, Americans, contrary to their wishes, will not find out what Europeans eat and drink during the flight.
The idea of collecting total information about airline passengers emerged in the United States immediately after the terrorist attacks in September 2001. American intelligence agencies developed several systems that, in their authors' opinion, could identify potential terrorists among thousands of airline passengers. The programs varied in complexity and degree of human involvement in the terrorist identification process. Some, such as the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system proposed by the National Security Agency, were almost fully automated.
The essence of TIA was that a special supercomputer installed at the Pentagon, using the so-called data-mining technology, created an activity algorithm for a "terroristically dangerous individual" and then, through comparative analysis, assigned people a "terrorist danger index."
Subsequently, the use of TIA was banned by Congress as a violation of human rights. As a result, the United States adopted a simpler system: a questionnaire is created for everyone who buys a ticket from an American airline. Based on its analysis, a potential passenger is assigned a color: red means a ban on flights, yellow implies a re-check of data, green gives permission to fly. Despite varying complexity, all similar systems are based on a common foundation - collecting as much detailed personal information as possible about people, their behavior, and habits.
While in the United States, especially after the attacks, such measures are treated fairly loyally, the country's intelligence agencies had many problems with Europeans visiting America. As early as the end of 2002, American authorities asked the EU to adopt a law requiring European airlines to provide personal information about passengers traveling to the United States.
The Americans wanted 60 parameters for each person. In addition to generally harmless information such as passport data and date of birth, they included address, phone number, as well as the method of ordering and paying for an airline ticket (including credit card number), and even what food a person requested during the flight or how they behaved.
In Europe, all this information pertains to private life, whose inviolability is protected by laws much more strictly than in the United States. Moreover, Europeans believe that the States are not able to ensure full confidentiality of the private information provided to them. Therefore, the EU, represented by the European Parliament, rejected the American proposal. Then the United States issued an ultimatum: if this information is not provided, European airlines would have to pay a fine of $6,000 per passenger. Thus, flights to America became unprofitable for European airlines.
Recently, a turning point occurred in the dispute between the Old and New World. The European Commission approved an agreement with the United States. As the commission's spokesman Jonathan Todd stated, the United States provided sufficient guarantees on non-disclosure of citizens' personal information, which he called "adequate."
A compromise with the United States was also reached in reducing the parameters subject to mandatory registration from 60 to 34, although the European Commission initially insisted on only 19. "Some data, such as requested meals and other details that could indicate a passenger's race, religion, or health condition, will not be required or will be excluded by American authorities," Todd said. However, credit card numbers and possibly mobile phone numbers will be provided. Jonathan Todd made clear that the compromise with the United States is a forced measure: "The alternative, which is to make no decision, would introduce uncertainty and sow chaos for airlines and passengers."
Interestingly, the European Commission made its decision contrary to the opinion of the European Parliament, which had previously applied to the EU Court of Justice to assess whether the US requirements comply with the law on privacy of personal information. The European Parliament also asked the Commission to refrain from making a decision until the court's verdict. The fact that the request was ignored showed that in Europe they fear losses no less than they fear terrorists in the United States.