Security is a global issue and the US and EU were working together on issues such as passenger name data on flights, and programmes designed to identify threats to ports and borders, the US chief privacy officer said yesterday.
Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security, was speaking in Dublin on the US perspective on data protection and intelligence sharing in the context of EU and US relations.
She told the Institute of European Affairs that the department was now just over two years old and arose out of 9/11. The US was thrust into terrorism when many parts of the world had already experienced it. They were aware that there was hatred for the West and the US in particular, she said. "We have to be aware of this but neither do we want our citizens to live in fear," she added.
Security was a global issue and the US was working with the EU and other parts of the world on such issues as passenger name data on flights and people crossing borders.
There was a US and EU agreement on certain passenger name data relating to flights between the US and EU states, access to which was required under US law.
The department was also responsible for organising programmes between foreign government and trading partners to identify and eliminate security threats before they arrived at US ports and borders. She said international co-operation on data tended to be within organisations such as Interpol. "It is incredibly important how the rest of the world views the work we do. We are aware of the impact on visitors to our country. We're not known for having strong privacy laws but this is a misconception. The Privacy Act is quite robust," she said.
Ms O'Connor Kelly also said that under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act non-US individuals were entitled to see their own data. "Immigrants' papers and files are held by part of the department and if they want to see their own papers they can," she said.
The FOI was one of the strongest in the world with 200,000 individual requests last year for a nominal fee to view their own papers.
She said identity theft was a huge financial issue as well as a security issue in the US.