Europe
has won a concession on data privacy by making the US request
information rather than have automatic access to all data,
according to news agency AP. The US has won a concession by putting
into the deal an agreement that it can share the information it
does receive more widely within US government and security
bodies.
The negotiations were concluded on Friday between the US
Department of Homeland Security and the Commission after nine hours
of overnight video conference talks.
The previously active passenger name records (PNR) agreement
expired last Sunday. The European Court of Justice ruled that the
previous agreement broke European rules on a technicality after the
European Parliament had opposed it on grounds of substance. The
substance of the deal was never tested by the ECJ, which made no
further decision once it found the technical flaw in its
implementation.
The European Commission had been expected to propose the same
deal for data sharing as had previously been in place but
negotiations with the US have been wide ranging and the just-signed
deal is a new one.
The US had been pressing for more access to data and more rights
over it, but though the Commission has maintained control over
Europeans' privacy rights, the deal is far from a permanent
one.
"The fact that this agreement lasts only nine months implies
that the USA and the EU authorities have agreed to disagree," said
Dr Chris Pounder, a privacy law specialist at Pinsent Masons, the
law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM. "The US wants wider uses of more
personal data about passengers; the EU want to ensure that European
data protection standards are maintained when these data are
processed."
The European Parliament may yet oppose the new agreement, and
political events in the US could also make finding common ground
next year difficult.
"This political divergence needs resolution and interim events
such as the mid-term elections in the USA or another terrorist
atrocity could have a strong bearing on what the final text,
expected next summer, actually contains," said Pounder.
