EDRi, Panoptykon Foundation and Access expressed their concern regarding the proposed Directive on EU Passenger Name Record. In current form, the proposal poses the risk of discrimination e.g. on religious grounds. Moreover, the proposal will bring significant costs to Member states. And all these with lack of evidence that such measures are effective in prevention of serious crimes.
Passenger Name Records (PNR) are data containing information provided by passengers and collected by air carriers for commercial purposes. This can contain several pieces of information such as dates, itinerary and contact details. All PNR data is stored in airlines’ databases. Many of these types of data can be used and aggregated to build profiles. For instance, meal preference can provide information about religious affiliation, hotel reservations can indicate passengers’ personal relationships, etc. – as explained Diego Naranjo from EDRi.
Opinion by EDRi, Panoptykon Foundation and Access regarding proposal for a Directive on an EU Passenger Name Record [PDF, 245,32 KB]