EU officials consider pooling air passenger data after Paris attacks | World news | The GuardianEU officials consider pooling air passenger data after Paris attacks | World news | The Guardian










Close






Skip to main content

 









sign in








subscribe









search




jobs






more


from the guardian:


jobs


change edition:



switch to the UK edition


switch to the AU edition







US edition




switch to the UK edition




switch to the Australia edition













The Guardian


Winner of the Pulitzer prize











home


›
world


›
europe




americas


asia


middle east


africa


australia


UK










home




US




world
selected




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







browse all sections
close







 











European Union



EU officials consider pooling air passenger data after Paris attacks









ID checks could be reintroduced within Schengen zone as European governments race to tighten security measures














Police officers patrol Terminal 4 of Madrid-Barajas airport after Spain stepped up security measures last week. Photograph: Alberto Martin/EPA




Ian Traynor in Brussels


Monday 12 January 2015 13.08 EST







Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp
















Information on travellers flying between European cities could be traded between government security services in the EU and passport and identity checks could be reintroduced within the EU’s passport-free travel zone, under measures being discussed urgently among governments in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Senior EU officials dealing with security and counter-terrorism are to meet in Brussels on Friday in an attempt to prepare new policies that will be put to an EU summit next month.
Two years of attempts to produce a coherent European counter-terrorism strategy have produced scant results. Galvanised by the attacks in Paris – attacks that were viewed as inevitable by senior EU diplomats and officials involved in security policy – European governments are now racing to close the perceived gaps.
Last week the Eurasia Group thinktank rated the EU as the world’s worst political risk in 2015, not least because of the dangers posed by homegrown terrorism and the spillover from the Middle East.
“The external political environment for Europe will be more challenging over 2015, given the risk of terrorist threats from Islamist militants is much greater in Europe than in any region outside the Middle East, simply by virtue of the numbers of European citizens fighting in Iraq and Syria and the size of Muslim communities inside these countries,” the thinktank added on Monday.
Ministers are to press social media firms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to cooperate in preventing jihadists and terrorists using the internet as a recruiting and propaganda tool.
But the focus is on fast-tracking the pooling of air travel data within the EU, known as PNR (passenger name records), meaning that millions of EU citizens could have their personal information stored for years.
The Spanish, with French and German support, are also pushing for curbs on passport-free travel within the Schengen area that covers most of the EU, though not Britain and Ireland, by reintroducing national border ID checks – moves previously rejected on the grounds that they would generate huge airport queues.
Travel data storage is opposed by the European parliament, while changing the Schengen rules is being resisted by the European commission.
EU member states already supply PNR data to the Americans under a clutch of bilateral agreements and can introduce their own national travel data systems, as Britain has done. But there is no pooling of such data between EU countries as the legislation has been blocked by the European parliament since 2013.
Laimdota Straujuma, the prime minister of Latvia, which has just taken over the rotating presidency of the EU, and Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, are to demand an end to the parliament blockade this week in Strasbourg.
The calls for a bigger pan-European crackdown got louder last year with the ascendancy of Isis in Syria, boosted by an estimated 3,000 Europeans joining its ranks, hundreds of whom are believed to have since returned home.
The Americans are alarmed at the implications of radicalised EU nationals returning home from the Middle East and then using visa-waiver systems between Washington and the EU to board planes to the US.
On Sunday in Paris as dozens of world leaders joined hundreds of thousands of citizens on the streets, interior ministers from 11 EU countries, the US and Canada as well as top officials from the European commission met to mull their options.
Eric Holder, the US attorney general, complained that the Europeans were not doing enough to gain the cooperation of social media companies in combating Islamist violence, an official present said. Another source said the Americans were also demanding that they be allowed to retain travel data supplied by the Europeans for longer than the 10 years currently permitted.
Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said the rules governing the Schengen passport-free zone had to be changed.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU commissioner for home affairs, resisted the demands from Spain and France for changes to the Schengen travel regime, pointing out that there was already scope for temporary introduction of document checks and the re-erection of national border controls if a government invoked emergency conditions.
Natasha Bertaud, a commission spokeswoman, said that before any change to the rules, “first we want to make maximum use of the existing rules”.
Officials point out that revised rules would have made no difference in Paris as the three assailants were French nationals resident in the capital.
Officials involved in the discussions also say that the value of the computer databases underpinning the Schengen system is impaired by the reluctance of national intelligence services, not least the British, to feed in information. They said the national services were sometimes happy to share intelligence with other countries, but loth to input the information into a pooled data base.
British intelligence, however, is slated for a key role in a new office under the Belgian government called the Syria strategic communication advisory team (SSCAT), which is “to combat terrorist propaganda and the misleading messages it conveys”, according to Sunday’s meeting.
Cazeneuve also called for a European PNR regime. “We are convinced of the irreplaceable usefulness of this tool at the European level,” he said.
That view was dismissed by Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Greens MEP specialising in data protection. “EU home affairs ministers are playing into terrorists’ hands by demanding big brother measures entailing blanket data retention without justification, he said. “This approach provides a false sense of security for citizens, at the expense of their civil liberties.
“Far-reaching data collection in France would not have prevented the odious attacks in Paris. The perpetrators were already known to security authorities. Instead of creating an ineffective dragnet on all air passengers, security authorities should have been exchanging the data they already had on these suspects.”
The British are the hawks on the counter-terrorism crackdown and strong supporters of the European PNR system, having previously also called for data collection on rail and ferry travellers.
Following the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, the British shaped an EU data retention directive, adopted the following year, allowing the capture and storage of electronic communications. But last April the European court of justice struck down the directive as in breach of the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. That ruling means the collection and retention of travel data may also fall foul of the court.
“The Paris stuff means that the council [EU governments] wants faster solutions,” said Claude Moraes, the Labour MEP who chairs the parliament’s civil liberties committee. “It has to be legislation that tackles terrorism but upholds freedom. They want to move quickly. And speed is not the enemy. But we have to exercise the greatest care. We don’t want legislation that collapses. It has to be watertight.”



Topics



European Union




European commission




Charlie Hebdo attack




Air transport




Europe








Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp



















 






related content












popular












 








The Guardian






back to top














home




US




world
selected




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







all sections
close







home




US




world
selected




UK




europe




americas




asia




middle east




africa




australia






opinion




sports




soccer




MLS




NFL




MLB




NBA




NHL






soccer




live scores




tables




competitions




results




fixtures




clubs






tech




games






arts




movies




tv & radio




music




books




art & design




stage




classical






lifestyle




food




health




love & sex




family




women




home & garden






fashion




business




markets




companies






money




travel




USA




europe




UK






environment




development




cities






science




media




crosswords




video











World




›
European Union








jobs

subscribe
all topics
all contributors

info and resources

contact us

feedback

complaints & corrections
terms & conditions
privacy policy
cookie policy
securedrop


© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.






















 
