Tag: Passenger Name Record Agreements

On February 11th, the European Parliament (EP) has adopted a resolution in which it commits to work toward finalising, by the end of the year, a directive on EU Passenger Name Records (PNR). Despite serious privacy concerns raised by civil society organisations, discourses privileging the need to reinforce EU anti-terrorism measures seem to have prevailed over European citizens’ fundamental rights.

Migration Commissioner Avramopoulos decided not to wait for the opinion of the CJEU on EU-Canada PNR and signaled his desire to quickly reach an agreement on the 2011 passenger data directive.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to refer the EU-Canada passenger name record agreement (PNR) to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to assess its compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Ever since CJEU’s landmark ruling invalidating the Data Retention Directive last April, a number of ongoing and proposed agreements that include data retention schemes have been put under the microscope. Yesterday’s vote is the first of many steps to ending indiscriminate and unlawful surveillance programmes in the EU.