BBC is reporting that The European Court of Justice, the highest court within the EU, has blocked an EU-US agreement that requires airlines to transfer passenger data to the US authorities. The court said the decision to hand over the data was not founded on an "appropriate legal basis". The agreement demands that within 15 minutes of take-off for the United States, a European airline must send the US authorities 34 items of personal information about the passengers on board. This information includes credit card information and phone numbers. BBC World Service also suggeste that it included meal preferences, which could be used to determine someone's religion.
BBC--EU court blocks data deal with US
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court found that the EU Council of Ministers' decision to sign the agreement on "Passenger Name Records" lacked an adequate legal basis.
The Council and the European Commission based their actions on the EU Data Protection Directive, but the court said the directive did not apply to data collected for security purposes.
The Guardian quotes Graham Watson, the Liberal Democrat leader in the European parliament, who led the campaign against the legislation.
The response to 9/11 has been costly, both to the taxpayer and to individual freedom," he said. "It has made us little, if any, safer.
"Today's judgment vindicates the four-year campaign that I and my colleagues led in the European parliament to protect the privacy of airline passengers."
The ruling, which gives the European commission and member states four months to find a solution, maintains the legality of the agreement until September 30 "for reasons of legal certainty". This means there will be no short term effect on airline passenger traveling from the EU, but in the long term, they can expect long lines.
Times UK quotes Claud Moraes, a Labour MEP on the European Parliament's justice and home affairs committee
[Moraes] said that handing over 34 pieces of information per passenger did not stop terrorists. "What you are doing is going on a very expensive fishing raid, taking pieces of information like credit card details that are not really necessary to target terrorism," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.
"Giving out people's personal financial information is a big deal, you need good assurances, and we didn't believe the standard of assurances we were getting from the Department of Homeland Security and the US authorities."
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