EU ponders sky marshals, passenger data sharing

Jan 21, 2010, 15:58 GMT

   Toledo, Spain - Passengers on European Union flights could find themselves sharing a cabin with in-flight policemen and their personal data in the hands of the security services after EU interior ministers discussed proposals on both issues Thursday.

Europe is scrambling to improve its airport security after two major breaches in the last month, one of which allowed a passenger carrying a bomb to board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

   The EU already shares passenger information with the United States, and US 'sky marshals' already operate on some international flights, but the EU has not yet brought in either type of system in its own territory.

'Obviously, we are looking at the possibility of posting people on board (passenger flights) to maintain security,' the EU's justice commissioner, Jacques Barrot, told journalists at an informal meeting with EU interior ministers in the Spanish city of Toledo.

   At the meeting, ministers 'agreed we must move towards a European Passenger Name Record (PNR), which is an absolutely vital instrument' in the fight against terrorism, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

   The PNR system allows airlines to share data on passengers. Under a deal between the EU and the US in 2007, EU airlines operating trans-Atlantic flights have to forward their PNR data to the US security authorities, but they do not have to share data systematically with the security services in EU states.

That is a paradox, 'as if a terrorist could not fly from London Heathrow to Madrid Barajas,' Rubalcaba said.

   Spain currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and is set to chair ministerial meetings on domestic issues such as security until the end of June.

On December 25, a passenger on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit allegedly tried to detonate a bomb on board. On Wednesday, a man with a suspect package ran loose in Munich airport.

The two incidents sparked calls for a major overhaul of airline security.

The key to improvement will be 'a unity of effort among responsible nations, (so) that al-Qaeda will not be able to carry out a successful terror attack on an aeroplane. They clearly intend to do so,' US Secretary of State for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who attended the meeting, said.

'Al-Qaeda is using its best minds against the international aviation security system: we must do no less,' she insisted.

Ahead of the meeting, attention had focused on the question of whether EU ministers would call for the EU-wide deployment of whole-body scanners, which look under a passenger's clothes to generate an image of their body. At present, each member state decides for itself whether and how to use them.

But officials at the meeting played down the importance of that issue as they pushed for much broader security measures.

'We should not get obsessed with this issue: a good European PNR (exchange system) with proper collection and exploitation of information would be just as effective,' Barrot said.

EU heavyweights Britain, France and Germany all called for a common EU PNR sharing system on Thursday, Barrot stressed.

The commission is currently studying the possibility to propose EU-wide rules for the use of the scanners, after the European Parliament blocked a 2008 proposal on the grounds of privacy.

Napolitano said there were four areas in which countries should cooperate to fight terrorism in the air.

Those are information collection and analysis; information sharing; improving aviation security standards; and developing new screening and information technology.

The US is also to discuss the issue with countries in Africa and the Western Hemisphere and with the International Civil Aviation Organization, Napolitano said.