DATA PROTECTION commissioner Billy Hawkes has expressed opposition to plans that would see the travel details of every person travelling in and out of the EU retained for 13 years for law enforcement purposes.
Mr Hawkes questioned if the State would be capable of keeping secure such an extensive database.
He told the joint Oireachtas Committee on European Scrutiny that it would be an invasion of the travellers’ privacy to allow information collected to facilitate air travel to be later used for the investigation of crime.
He was appearing before the committee to comment on a proposal by the European Commission that all states would share passenger name record (PNR) information and retain it for 13 years.
The information, which is collected by airlines and includes details of name, address, travel patterns and payment details, could then be used by participating states to investigate terrorism and organised crime.
Mr Hawkes said it was a basic data protection principle that information collected for one purpose should not be used for another purpose. He believed the current proposal “offends against this basic principle”. He said his concerns were shared by other EU data protection authorities.
“Whether it’s a business trip to Singapore, a shopping trip to New York or a holiday in Morocco, the State will have full details,” he said. “Can this invasion of individual privacy be considered a proportionate response to threats from the small number who may be tempted to engage in terrorism or organised crime?”
Issues of confidentiality also arose because some State agencies, as well as those in other EU countries, have proven incapable of preventing the leaking of information. Mr Hawkes said a system was already in place that required airlines to make available details of all passengers entering the EU in advance of their journeys.
He found it “very strange” that a new system involving “a more serious encroachment on privacy” was being proposed before the existing procedures had been evaluated. The new system would be a step closer to a “surveillance society, where our day-to-day activities are constantly monitored and our private space is more and more restricted”.
There was no evidence that the sharing and retention of airline passenger data offered greater protection against organised crime or terrorism.
“Can it only be a matter of time before this [surveillance] is extended to all of our movements?”
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the new system was still in planning and would need to be approved by all EU states.
The department said: “The benefit of sharing and processing PNR data for law enforcement purposes is that they can be checked against watch lists and identify individuals who are known terrorists or criminals, and their associates, who are entering the territory of the European Union.”
