US plan to hold EU passenger data for 15 yrs 'unlawful' A reported plan to allow the US to retain the personal details of inbound EU air passengers for 15 years would be unlawful, lawyers for the European Commission have said, according to a newspaper report. The Guardian, which reported last month that the US wanted to keep the information for 15 years, has reported that …
Adding hay does not make finding needles easier. Indiscriminately adding data (especially when including fingerprints) concerning ALL passengers to a database which is intended for analysis of crimes will lead to a disproportionate number of false positives, as anyone with any knowledge of pattern recognition should know.
I suggest we follow Brazil, and take the finger prints of ALL US passengers visiting our shores (and not with fancy scanners, use ink!!)
BTW, HOLLAND is not an EU member; The Netherlands is. Calling Groningen where I live Holland is like saying Glasgow is in England.
The pattern you recognized in haystacks is called "Enumerating Badness".
The pattern I recognized in Apple, Facebook, Google, MS et al. (props to Eric S., again, and again, and again) is called "Bull Shit". Remember 'You have the right to be forgotten' ? In a secure world, obviously not. I'm doubting that 'You have the right to be forgotten after 15 years' would have made the Press Release.
<quote>"Under the proposed Directive airlines would have to send information such as passengers' home addresses, mobile phone numbers, frequent flyer information, email addresses and credit card details to countries before its planes can land."</quote>
All this information being bandied about even if you're *NOT* linked to terrorism or serous crime? Really?
And what's even worse, as has recently been proven, Government data storage isn't really as secure as people make out, so it's not long before this rich seam of data is mined for all it's worth!
Oh, and surprise surprise, the UK is one of only two or three countries supporting the Merkins in not only getting hold of EU passenger data, but then keeping it in a database for 15 bloody years!
Really - you'd think these duly elected representatives could at least pretend to share the concerns of the people who got them there!
It's highly likely they're keeping it for as long as they like anyway. What are we going to do? Send in the EU swat team to check? Of course not.
So the only solution is don't give it to them in the first place. If they don't want anyone going there, let's see how long that lasts before their tourist industries lobby Congress to change the rules.
They'll immediately ban EU flights into the USA costing EU airlines a shitload of money and EU companies too.
Then they'll have to give in and allow the data so flights can resume and demand equally silly quid pro quo stuff.
Don't buy from US companies (Kraft, Apple, MuckDonalds, MS, etc). Then EU companies have less reason to deal with the USA, meaning flights to the USA become less important and tourists will always find somewhere else to fly to... Yeah some stuff is really US-only like CPU's but you can always buy a SONY or Samsung laptop to keep it in, HTC / LG instead of Apple or Motorola, etc...
The yanks.gov will do whatever they want regardless but consumers don't have to help fund their economy.
"A leaked document from an EU meeting last week showed that France, Germany, Italy, Holland and others are opposed to the proposed deal with the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Estonia the only countries backing it"...
May I be the first to slap our sensible European friends on the back in congratulations for standing up to the US, whilst we bend over and pick up the soap!...
Given the attitude of the passport checkers of the USA Irritation department, (I am sure they think of themselves as the immigration people, but hey anyone can make a mistake, just like they do) why would anyone want to go near the United States of Annoyance anyway?
Whilst I applaud the EU for standing up for the 'privacy' of travellers, I do question how effective it is going to be.
I wonder how popular it will be for passengers from the EU handing over this information manually after a transatlantic flight, the queues for US customs is bad enough without re-iterating the PNR data to a surly TSA employee.
You want in to the US, then you have to hand over the rules and store it by their rules..
I realy don't have a problem with them keeping my details, not like it's not already been kept before in the past for people pre computer days. Lets face it - they have to account for everything so there is always a audit trail in some form or another you could tie up with a name. Just case of haveing that data in a more organised way to accomodate such abilities. Nothing new here and personlay I don't have a issue. Frankly those that do take issues probably aint even been to the country. Lets face it the only thing changing here is people's insight into what goes on and a general panic reaction. ONLY real issue I have is data entry into computers these days is nothing like the old days with double data entry, we just assume a low paid individual will always enter data 100% right all the time, THAT is were the issue realy is - mistakes in the data, not how long it's retained.
All that said if some people wish to take issue and this has or effect's them (IE they have traveled) then ask yourself what aspect of this do you object to. The fact it happens or the fact it happens for X number of years and then ask yourself why is that and what the difference is. But for me it's invalid data/mistakes enterying that data I have more issue with than any level of data retention.
In becoming the land of the not very free they've just let the terrorists win.
Mind you we're not a great deal better. For a laugh take a wet film (and empty) SLR camera into the City of London and snap away at public buildings, security guard...mongs.
You'll very quickly find out just how unfree the UK has become.
and the sad thing is we've done it to ourselves.
http://photographernotaterrorist.org/
PNR data is entered by passengers into airline/travel websites, collated by the airlines and then shipped to the US ELECTRONICALLY. Y'know... in binary form. There are no low-paid minions involved anywhere, unless the plethora of US-based three-letter agencies employ low-paid minions to mine data.
So if the information in the PNR is incorrect, it's because the passenger (i.e. you) entered it incorrectly, or the travel agent did. And that would be flagged up at the airport anyway.
PNR information is as correct as it can get. You don't really expect airlines to PRINT it, and FAX it to the US, do you?
The United States could just tell Europe that if it doesn't give full data on every passenger flying to the United States from Europe, and allow the U.S. to keep it and do what they like with it, then they can forget about anyone coming to the United States from Europe by air.
Or, on the other hand, they could fully comply with European data protection laws on European data... and as the passengers leave the airplanes, copy down their names from their passports. That, of course, would be data collected in America, subject to American laws.
Of course, over here, data protection laws don't seem to make much sense. They intrude on what people can do with their own computers and their own filing systems. And the dictators who would misuse data to persecute people wouldn't obey those laws anyways, so they only hobble democratic governments in going after real criminals.
9/11... was perpetrated by people holding US visas, on US domestic flights.
That being the case... how much data about US domestic flights is Europe given to mine for economic intelligence^h^h ^h^h ^h^h ^h^h security reasons...?
Am I right in thinking the answer is, none what-so-ever? If so, why are we gifting this valuable economic intelligence to the Merkins?
US Citizens. Therefore, they HAD to have entered the country at some point, which is the point of the exercise: to track who's coming and going and matching it up against known bad guys so as to raise the appropriate alarms. Also, I recall that NONE of the 9/11 terrorists were RESIDENT aliens (aka Green Card Holders) and so would not have been in the country for an extended period (say over ten years). So the USA is going to want the list of names one way or the other. If the EU won't accede, they can just create delays for their citizens at US customs as DHS does it themselves.
A curious "Coalition of the willing" (to hand over damm near any amount of data) is it not?
Were these who were also mad keen on ISP having to hunt down copyright violations?
This groups sounds strangely familiar....
And as other have noted on the 9/11 perpetrators *domestic* US flights were seized by foreigners with *valid* visas.+
And by the way. Osabana bin Laden is *dead*. US forces killed him.
Remember?
Thumbs down for this US behavior. It'd be thumbs up for European stance (the above countries excepted).
The UK and Ireland have had to deal with terrorism in the past and data mining has been a big deal for them. Ireland is anxious to keep its advantageous deal with the UK going (immigration controls from Ireland into the UK are non-existent).
Sweden I'm a bit puzzled by considering its traditionally politically-neutral stance, but then again, if the Wikileaks argument about Julian Assange has any credence, it's likely to be because Sweden has several lovely deals with the US it would like to keep (like Saab's access to US technology for the Gripen fighter).
Estonia I'm really puzzled by... eager to cozy up to the US too?
Spain has ETA, Germany had Baader-Meinhof, Italy had the Brigate Rosse, France had the 'Algerie Francaise' wingnuts etc etc. These countries have found out that the way to deal with terrorism is intelligence on the ground, not random data grabs.... an I'll bet that the cops doing the real anti-IRA work in UK and Eire know that too.
UK, Eire and the others are just selling out their citizens to score brownie points with the yanks
>Spain has ETA
>[they] have found out the way to deal with terrorism is [...] not random data grabs
Spaniard here.
Police is allowed to grab your NIC card, compulsory in Spain, with data such as birthday or parents' names. They can do it anytime, anywhere and without any reason at all. If you're a foreigner, they'll ask your for the passport or any identity document valid in Schengen area. They can, and do take note of all this data. They routinely do this in near-border areas, not only the Basque Country (for ETA) but Catalonia too, and almost for every train arriving at Irun and Portbou border stations from France.
Also, if you stay at night in a hotel, hostel, camping or whatever, you'll need to leave your personal data to the local staff to be handed to police officers, who will collect this data and let them know where you are spending your holidays.
AC, although risking a detention for using the terrorist cyberweapon of a Guy Fawkes's mask.
Osama bin Laden is dead. In case you haven't noticed, al-Qaeda still exists; it had more than one member.
When the world's one billion Muslims, without exception, will not dare to raise their hands in aggressive violence against a non-Muslim, then we won't have anything to worry about. As events in places from Nigeria to Egypt to Indonesia prove, we're not there yet.
Look at how the blasphemy laws in Pakistan are used against Christians there for one example.
But then, even Britain isn't fully in compliance with the First Amendment; the Church of England has a status which directly violates the Establishment Clause. Yes, the U.S. constitution is only legally binding in the U.S., but the First Amendment represents a universal moral principle of religious freedom, binding on all people in all times and places.
Which reminds me: when are you handing back the churches and monasteries stolen by Henry VIII?
I am a frequent flyer and as a consultant I visit many large corporations which also request a lot of personal information about visitors before allowing them to enter their data centers and workplaces. It's modern life; people just need to accept it. The only real solution is to outlaw religion, that would solve most of the world's problems and then we wouldn't need to track fanatics.
are you for real? Please re-read what you posted and apply yourself to the category question: 'nutjobs' and 'people who have religious faith'; do either of these categories exist totally, or even substantially, within the other?
I'll save you some time: answer = 'No'. In fact a wonderfully small part of the 'people who have religious faith' group shares space with 'nutjobs' group, and an even smaller subset of that fall within the 'actively violent religious-nutjob' category.
I think you may well find that it isn't 'religion' per se that is the source of your angst, but 'people', particularly a relatively tiny group who use 'religion' as a justification for their bad behaviour. If you took that justification away they would almost certainly find another in short order.
As for the matter in hand: unless compelled to visit the USA I strongly recommend travel via Singapore/Hong Kong, etc. where transit passengers are treated as normal human beings rather than inconveniences/criminals-who-just-haven't-been-caught-yet.
True, many nutjobs aren't religious in their nutjobbery; Take a look at the nutjob that hangs out outside your local library growling at cars and smelling of vomit, though, for example, and ask yourself a few simple questions; "How many planes has he flown into office buildings?" "How many times has he blown himself up on a busy commuter train?" Hard to see what the "justification" would be that they would feed to the chaps on the ground if you took away the whole 72(?) virgins in the afterlife nonsense.
Perhaps the difference is more quantitative than qualitative, but the fact is as nutjobs go, religious ones tend to be orders of magnitude more destructive than the vanilla ones. This is a problem inherent in religion, being that any religion's principle message is "We're God's chosen," with the corollary," and you're all scum."
Apologising for them doesn't help.
"As for the matter in hand: unless compelled to visit the USA I strongly recommend travel via Singapore/Hong Kong, etc. where transit passengers are treated as normal human beings rather than inconveniences/criminals-who-just-haven't-been-caught-yet."
True, but they do have some rather draconian laws regarding people who do arrive and commit a crime there. Ergo, most would not desire to be subjected to one of the thousand versions of hell they have. :)
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Odd that in the UK we employ great numbers of minimum wage tards to do our security and they turn out to be complete idiots. Protecting us from the likes of scary Optimus Prime T shirts and the like.
So I agree security in the UK is either a farce or a pantomime. Sans the baggy trousers of course.
If you study what the EU directive includes, they even intend to give your credit card details to other countries. I would have thought it was illegal to pass anyone's credit card details to a third party without consent. That could expose you to all sorts of scams.
Not to mention that providing bulk email addresses to slightly-dodgy destinations is just perfect for a spammer to bribe an official to allow them to be harvested as they arrive.
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