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The new agreement on passengers name record (PNR) between the EU and the USA is published - 17 November 2011

On November 17th 2011, the European Union and the United States have initialled a new agreement on the transfer of air passengers’ data for flights from the EU to the US. If adopted by the European Parliament and EU Member States in the Council of Ministers, the new agreement on Passenger Name Records (PNR) will replace the current agreement from 2007, improving data protection whilst providing an efficient tool to fight serious transnational crime and terrorism.

The main amendments to the old agreement are the following:

- The PNR data can be used to prevent transnational crimes that are punishable by a sentence of imprisonment of at least three years (Art. 4, paragraph 1(b))

- After 6 months, the PNR data will be transferred to a dormant database where it may be repersonalized for a period of up to 5 years (Art. 8, paragraph 3).

Therefore this agreement does not provide significant change in favour of fundamental rights in comparison to the previous available version (May 2011), and is far from providing the improvements that civil society and the European parliament so strongly demanded.

Download the agreement in English, French and German. Download the European Commission’s press release regarding the signature of the new agreement in English and French. 

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