U.S. WANTS GLOBAL STANDARD FOR PASSENGER DATA SHARING
January 14, 2019
Last month at the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) high-level aviation security conference, U.S. representatives pressed for a global unified standard for the collection of passenger information. Currently, ICAO recommends that its members collect passenger record data, but the U.S. is pressing for the recommendation to become a standard by the end of the year.
The passenger data includes personal identifiable information, credit card information, and passenger itineraries. U.S. representatives argued that this information is highly valuable in the prevention of terrorism and the identification of patterns of suspicious travel. The proposal was supported by Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand, the U.K., South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.
Several other countries, including members of the EU, cautioned that more work should be done before the proposal is taken up by the full ICAO assembly, citing concerns about the protection of passenger privacy and the protection of fundamental rights, particularly when this information is shared with other countries. The EU instituted comprehensive data privacy regulations earlier this year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect on May 25, 2018.
The collection of passenger data was a major issue at the two-day ICAO conference, where the U.N. and ICAO finalized an arrangement to cooperate on passenger information gathering. The agreement is expected to be signed on December 20, 2018 at a U.N. Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee briefing on aviation security.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com or 202-659-6622); Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com or 202-659-6665), or Alexander Matthews (amatthews@eckertseamans.com or 202-659-6633).
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