Meeting at the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee on the Use of Passenger Name Record data - EU PNR in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, Zanda KALNIŅA-LUKA&Scaron;EVICA, Axel VOSS (EPP, DE), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), Sophia IN'T VELD (ALDE, NL) and Jan Philipp ALBRECHT (Greens/EFA, DE)

Brussels

statement

debate

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

SIPPEL, Birgit (S&D, DE)

IN 'T VELD, Sophia (Renew, NL)

PNR (T)

ALBRECHT, Jan Philipp (Greens/EFA, DE)

KIRKHOPE, Timothy (ECR, UK)

KALNIŅA-LUKAŠEVICA, Zanda (LV)

Use of Passenger Name Record data - EU PNR: extracts from the debate on the report by Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR,UK)

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), EP Rapporteur on PNR, "In this revised report I include a full reference to articles 8 and 21 of the Chart of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the inclusion of intra EU-flights, a reference to data which is transferred by air carriers beyond those listed in the directive having to be deleted by the Passenger Information Unit immediately and permanently, the transfer of data without prior consent should only be permitted if the transfer for the data is essential for the prevention of an immediate and serious threat to public security."

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), EP Rapporteur on PNR, "The masking out of data after 30 days, the right to rectification erasure and blocking, the right to compensation and the right to judicial redress, and in the event of a privacy incident or breach, including unauthorised access or disclosure, the subject of that shall be and must be notified. PNR data must be monitored, sampled and audited in line with the statutory code of practise which must be developed by each member state supervisory authority. And it will form part of the Member States review process".

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), EP Rapporteur on PNR, "I have narrowed the scope to cover terror offences or serious transnational crime. You will see that I have actually specified a far lesser areas of criminal activity as been covered in this matter."

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), EP Rapporteur on PNR, "Access to full PNR data should be allowed for 4 years instead of 5, after the data has been masked out for transnational serious crime until the whole period of 5 years for terrorism. Chairman, I'm hoping this draft report acts as a starting point for now constructive and calm dialogue. As I have always said my door remains open to those who want to work with me and in the Parliament in order to move forward."

SOUNDBITE (English), Zanda KALNI&#325;A-LUKA&#352;EVICA, on behalf of the Latvian Presidency of the Council, "It must be mentioned that several member states already started putting in place their own national PNR systems. And we believe that EU wide PNR system is a better alternative"

SOUNDBITE (German), Axel VOSS (EPP, DE), "I have the impression that if we are not able to do this and to confront this situation, the member states are going to move away from European legislation, they are going to take their own action and we will lose the opportunity to take a common approach and to produce a technical platform where we can have the appropriate discussions and liaise together".

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), "The current text limits the use of data to terrorism and serious transnational crime, there will still be some controversy and discussion over the list of these crimes but there is a recital 28 that leaves it open to member states to use the data for other purposes than set out in the directive and I think we need to discuss further".

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN&apos;T VELD (ALDE, NL), "I am NOT willing to work on this file if the Council is not equally committed to adopting a sound Data Protection Directive, Madame President of the Council, read my lips: DATA PROTECTION DIRECTIVE, ok? For me that's a condition, and if the Council is not unambiguously committed to concluding that file as well, then I'm not committed to work on this file".

SOUNDBITE (English), Jan Philipp ALBRECHT (Greens/EFA, DE), "When we talk about the EU PNR, or what most of those who wanted it are talking about, is the exchange of information. But exactly the exchange of information is not part of this directive. There's only the provision that of course they 'may be an exchange'. But there's no obligation to exchange information, instead this directive is only about the obligation to retain information, so to massively retain passenger name records for 5 years of all travellers and with the report of Timothy KIRKHOPE not only of the travellers coming into the European Union and going outside but all the travellers travelling inside the European Union also."