Concerns about the PNR Agreement between Canada and the EU

12. September 2016

Last week, Paolo Mengozzi, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, released his opinion on the draft agreement between Canada and the European Union concerning the transfer of passenger name record data, which is also known as the PNR Agreement, due to concerns about the compatibility with the EU Charter.

The respective Agreement allows that the data collected from passengers – including information about passenger travel habits, payment details, dietary requirements and information containing sensitive data about the passengers health, ethnic origin or religious beliefs – for the purpose of reserving flights between Canada and the EU, has to be transmitted to the respective Canadian authorities in order to prevent and detect not only terrorist threats but also other serious transnational criminal offenses.

Although the EU signed similar agreements with the U.S. and Australia having the approval of the European Parliament before, the European Parliament now decided to give the Agreement with Canada to the European Court of Justice due to concerns about the compatibility with the EU Charter as they worry about privacy and and data protection issues.

In his opinion Paolo Mengozzi stated that certain provisions of the draft were not compliant with the EU Charter such as:

  • Canada’s ability to process the collected data beyond what it is strictly necessary to the original purposes of the Agreement,
  • the processing and retention of sensitive data by Canada and
  • a lack of safeguards and oversight mechanisms for the transfer of data collected for this Agreement to other foreign authorities.

Paolo Mengozzi explained that the draft should be reviewed so that it includes:

  • a clear definition of the categories of data included within the scope of the Agreement,
  • an exclusion of sensitive data from the scope of the Agreement and
  • limiting the number of ‘targeted’ persons individuals being suspected of participating in a terrorist threat or a serious transnational crime on a reasonable level.
Category: General