As I have mentioned a number of times in this blog, the US Governments insistence on spying on every visitor to the USA continues to cause increasing furore in Europe. As was predicted, the US have acknowledged that the PNR information will (and probably already is according to some sources) be used by other US agencies outside of the originally intended agencies.
Whilst it is right that measures have to be put in place to combat terrorism, that fact that European authorities have allowed the setting up of such a one-sided agreement driven by the threat of US flying embargo has set a precedent that will be hard to correct. It’s strange that on the one hand European politician shout loudly about freedom of speech and information and protection of privacy, but then work to give away so much information about our private lives.
I expect that if Europe demanded the PNR information of every US citizen travelling to this side of the ‘pond’ there would have been an outcry and it would never have been agreed to by the US.
It’s amazing to me just how many people still don’t know how much information is being given to the US before ‘allowing’ you to fly to the US, check out the current list of 34 pieces of information that is reviewed by US authorities. Did you know that they will have access to your credit card transaction history? Did you know that they will have access to your email history?
British Airways still don’t have a comprehensive list on it’s web site about the information that it supplies to the US, two friends travelling this week to the USA had no idea about the level of personal information intrusion that they will endure for their one week in Florida!
I wonder how much more information will be given up before someone says enough is enough!
Reference: EU-US Airline Passenger Data Disclosure
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