Memorandum by the British
Air Transport Association
The British Air Transport Association (BATA)
welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Committee's
inquiry.
BATA is the trade association for UK registered
airlines. Our members cover a wide range of airline services and
produce over 85 per cent of UK airline output.
CURRENT POSITION
1. A number of UK airlines provide Passenger
Name Record (PNR) access to US Customs, Canada Border Services
Agency and Project Semaphore in the UK.
2. At present US Customs "pulls"
PNRs ie they have direct access to reservations systems. In line
with the present EU/US agreement, moves are being made to replace
the `pull' system (where PNR data is pulled by the requesting
authority) with the `push', (where it is pushed by the carrier).
3. The EU/US Agreement allows for US Customs
to operate an "ad hoc push", ie in addition to four
scheduled "pushes" per flight, US Customs can request
PNR data at anytime. This is delaying the cutover to push as it
is not clear how the ad hoc push will operate. The US has access
to all data within the PNR.
PREFERENCE
4. BATA would prefer to see a `push' model
operated. Not only does this meet the wishes of the EU data protection
authorities, it provides an advantage to the carrier in that carriers
have some control over costs.
COSTS
5. At present, with the exception of Project
Semaphore, all development and transmission costs are borne by
carriers. BATA believes that the costs of providing the data should
lie with the requesting control authority and that this should
apply to the UK e-Borders programme.
CURRENT AGREEMENT
6. The current EU/US Agreement is fairly
ambiguous in what it requires in terms of the mechanism for providing
data and there is much debate between carriers, the Commission
and the US on whether a `push' solution is mandated, whether an
`ad hoc' mechanism is required, and when this needs to be implemented.
VALUE OF
PNR DATA
7. Carriers in general feel that PNR data
is so sketchy at times that it is of limited use to the authorities.
However, in the UK, e-Borders would argue that they have successfully
used PNR data to identify criminal activity through the Project
Semaphore trials, directly resulting in arrests.
US REQUIREMENTS
8. An Annex was attached to the back of
the Agreement which stated that the US required access to all
data, at any time. By attaching this to the Agreement, we have
never been clear on whether this is officially accepted by the
EU.
9. We are also concerned that the US requirements
include departure control data (bag tags and seat numbers) which
are not available from the reservations systems. The US has also
requested frequent flyer information which is held in completely
separate systems.
EU POSITION—"PUSH"
10. BATA members understood, after meeting
with the Commission, that they needed to change the process from
"pull" to "push", in order to meet the requirements
of the Agreement, or would otherwise be exposed to legal action
from passengers regarding the way data was provided.
US POSITION—"PULL"
11. The US wish to retain their current
mechanism for obtaining data (a data "pull"). However,
the EU feel that this does not afford adequate protection as data
is freely available, is not filtered and is not restricted to
relevant flights. This means that we are trying to implement a
solution that the US does not really want, and hence it is difficult
to progress with clarity on how this should work. Any new Agreement
needs to clearly resolve these issues and provide adequate time
for compliance.
CANADA—SINGLE
"PUSH"
12. We would prefer to see a similar approach
to the one adopted by Canada, which defines a single "push"
of data at departure and places far less burden on the airlines
than the four "pushes" required by the US plus a mechanism
for obtaining additional "ad hoc pushes" on request.
SUMMARY
13. To summarise, BATA feels that the following
is required:
— clarity on the mechanism for providing
data;
— a batch mechanism only, with no "ad
hoc" requirement;
— a restricted set of defined data
items, that are available in reservation systems;
— a restricted number of data accesses
to keep costs to a minimum;
— adequate protection to ensure that
carriers are not exposed to legal action through data protection
issues;
— an agreed implementation timescale
to allow for system development; and
— an agreed global standard on PNR
data provision.
March 2007
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