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MOST PEOPLE WOULDN’T be overly familiar with what a PNR is.
Essentially, a Passenger Name Record is the detail of all data involved in the booking of a passenger flight which most airlines share with each other, ostensibly should a passenger need to book connecting flights or a hotel with a separate carrier.
So the kind of data involved would range from names and email addresses to IP addresses, religion, credit card details, habits etc. Once a reservation is created, a permanent PNR exists. If you haven’t seen one before, it’s a little disconcerting:
In the wake of January’s Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris there is a renewed clamor in the halls of the EU for increased security measures to prevent further attacks.
The most immediate reaction has been in the form of a draft report regarding an EU-wide PNR.
Legislation regarding such a record was defeated at the EU’s Civil Liberties Committee in 2013 due to the dubious nature of its handling of data protection and privacy law, but the report on a potential new record will be presented to the European Parliament by Timothy Kirkhope before the end of February.
Kirkhope has described the EU PNR as “very important when dealing not only with recent events like the terrible terrorism attacks in Paris, but also of course with major criminality.”
I don’t claim that it is the only measure we need to protect ourselves, but it is a very useful one. We’re not looking at profiling here, we’re just looking for patterns that could indicate criminality.
Should all things go to plan for the British MEP and his fellow agitators legislation could be enacted on the EU PNR before the end of 2015.
Non-state PNRs are supported by airlines worldwide, but the most infamous is probably the state-sanctioned record in the US (American travel-writer and freedom-of-information blogger Edward Hasbrouck details issues regarding American PNRs on his website The Practical Nomad).
TheJournal.ie spoke to TJ McIntyre, lawyer with online privacy campaigners Digital Rights Ireland, about what the establishment of an EU PNR will mean for us. What he had to say is a little worrying.
“A lot of them already exist, but just because you’re already doing bad things doesn’t mean you should do more, it’s just so open to abuse,” he says.
The American PNR has effectively turned into a no-fly list, with the likes of the FBI using it coerce American Muslims to become informers for example.
In the EU there’s absolutely no doubt that it would be used in the same way. We already have state intelligence agencies hacking travel agents and hotel bookings, this will just legitimise that further.
McIntyre is likewise quite cynical about the timing of the calls for legislation, seeing it as “opportunism at the highest level”.
It’s absurd really, for each terrorist incident in the last 15 years the perpetrators have invariably already been on the authorities’ radar.
You can’t complain about a lack of resources for intelligence services and then create a behemoth like this. You don’t search for a needle in a haystack by making the haystack bigger.
“Not only that, but the whole thing is on very shaky ground legally,” agrees McIntyre.
Leaked EU parliamentary advice in recent times has put PNR systems very much under question. They’re fundamentally dubious from the point of view of the law.
Despite his concerns however, McIntyre is far from convinced that an EU PNR is an inevitablity.
Well the EU has recognised the significance of all this in the past. They’re very capable of holding off, and hopefully they will.
This could get very interesting.
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This is getting way too complicated for me! I quit!!
It’s simple, they screw us and we take it
Its simple – the idea of 17 different nations all having the same currency is daft
You cannot have ONE currency and 17 FINANCE MINISTERS!
Mmmm its begining to look an awful lot like Declan Ganleys proposal to federalise the EU debts using the ESM as the vehicle to facilitate this.
Correct Sean. Also looking an awful lot like Ganley was right when he said there would be no money left in the ESM by the time Ireland required the second bailout.
I don’t agree Sean. The fact that knowing that the EFSF and ESM will be able to intervene and buy bonds directly will probably push the yield down even without them actually having to do anything. That will make it possible for countries to actually use the markets instead of the bailout mechanisms.
If you look at the recent short-term Spanish bond issue it was actually oversubscribed from buyers. Yes, Spain paid a premium because the markets knew that they have no other choice currently but to pay that price. If however the Spanish can simply turn to the EFSF/ESM and sell their bonds to them at a lower yield then the markets will ultimately have to follow because they have to buy and sell bonds to make any money. There the markets will offer the lower rates and the EFSF/ESM won’t actually have to do anything.
@ Jim Walsh
Your analysis is somewhat skewed.
Firstly EFSF and ESM do not have the €750 billion being brandied about, this is an imaginary figure because they are just sums that have been promised by EZ member countries including Italy and Spain! Where is it going to come from if it is actually needed?
Secondly, you sound very simplistic when you assume that the markets will offer lower rates because of (a non existent fund?). That is precisely what was expected when we had this phony €100 billion bailout for Spanish banks 2 weeks ago, rather the markets rightly saw through the charade and the Spanish bond rates has not reduced but topped 7% this week .
By the time the markets see that this an unholy cross between a sham and scam- it will all start again.
Jim. 750bn is nowhere near enough to bailout Spain and Italy. It will not solve the crisis only buy more time.
Not at all… Italy payed 20% of Spain’s bailout at an interest of 3% … To pay this Italy borrowed from the ESM at 7% … Basically it has put both countries over the edge and now Italy’s closer to boiling…. European union fail…..
This is just a precursor to the American dept crisis… The real crash the dollar bust
750bn would be enough to bailout Spain for this year, but not Spain and Italy.
Spanish banks borrow over 300bn a month from the ECB, and have 3 trn in debt.
This is a big step forward but a long way from resolving it. Look at how Greece has nearly swallowed half of that 750 already and it is only 1/14 the size of these two and its banks and private sector have low debt, as opposed to Spain/
Italy did not borrow from the ESM at 7% – they borrowed on the open markets at 7%
The whole thing is going to burst in 3 years time
What date?
I predict this will go ahead and the morning headline will be ‘costs drop on borrowing’ followed by an evening headline of ‘costs rise after morning rest-bite, markets unconvinced’. Whatever they do the markets keep coming back at us harder, we really are slaves to the markets.
We are slaves to the market but it is a point as well, that half gestures like this, can’t be expected to solve anything.
The crisis is because of the euro. You cannot have a monetary union without a fiscal union. And you cannot have a fiscal union without political union.
The parliaments of Europe will never agree to political union
They will also never agree to fiscal union. The principle power a parliament has is control over the finances. They will never hand over this power to Brussels
The euro crisis could be over in the morning if the ECB was allowed to buy up sovereign debt. But Dr Merkel will not give them that power. She will only give them that power when there is a fiscal union. And a full fiscal union, if there ever is one, could take years
For example the Bank of England has bought up a THIRD of UK sovereign debt. That is why Britains yields or interest rates are down at 1.5%. If Spain had its own central bank, it could mop up all their govt debt and have the same low yields
The markets ate sure to look for a way to exploit this if it becomes reality. Is it possible?
The question is will it become reality? All 17 countries will have to agree to this scheme. Will the triple AAA countries agree if they think it will damage their ratings?
Sorry that last comment should have been directed at Too Trueleft and not Sean.
That piggy bank is looking awfully small right now.
*sorry not directed at you. General comment.
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