Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-293"
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"en.20061213.30.3-293"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, matters relating to data protection have had a high profile during the Finnish presidential term. On the one hand, the Presidency has encountered challenges relating to the subject and previously known to us, such as taking forward the Framework Decision on data protection under the third pillar. On the other hand, we have faced situations where the Presidency has had to respond quickly and as the circumstances have demanded. Examples of this are the negotiation of the new agreement on passenger name record (PNR) data with the United States of America, and the matter of bank transfer data by SWIFT.
The compatibility of the current and future PNR agreement and the ATS is being examined at present, especially with regard to how long information is to be kept, as well as the handing over of data and its relevance. The Presidency and the Commission have sent the US authorities an official enquiry on the matter. The European Parliament will be advised of the outcome in due course.
The Finnish Presidency is aware that the European Parliament has said in several contexts that it considers the Framework Decision on data protection under the third pillar and its speedy adoption to be very important. The proposal for the Framework Decision has been one of the priorities of our Presidency in the area of justice and home affairs. It was our ambitious goal to reach agreement on the Framework Decision during Finland’s term.
We have taken much time and trouble this autumn to take this proposal for a Framework Decision forward. During our term the first reading was brought to a conclusion, and it went through a second and third reading. In addition, on several occasions the Article 36 Committee and the Permanent Representatives Committee were asked to look at individual questions relating to the matter.
Despite these efforts, the timetable proved too tight. Obviously, consensus will not be reached now during the Finnish Presidency, and the debate on the Framework Decision will be taken up in the German term.
The proposal for a Framework Decision is a broad and multilateral package, whose impact on police cooperation, as well as cooperation on crime and the protection of data of those registered, will call for careful deliberation. The difficulty with it is that certain crucial questions remain unanswered, though much progress has been made. For example, questions relating to the scope of the Framework Decision have not yet been resolved. The main question that remains unanswered is whether the principles of data protection in the Framework Decision would also apply to the processing of data within the Member States, or whether its scope should be limited to cross-border information, which is what some Member States are in favour of.
It was also the task of the Presidency this autumn to negotiate a new agreement on the surrender of PNR data to the US authorities. The agreement that emerged from the talks corresponds very much to the content of the 2004 agreement. The airlines can still operate, and they can still hand over PNR data to the United States. The United States, for its part, is committed to guaranteeing an adequate level of data privacy in the future.
The agreement signed in mid-October is temporary and valid until the end of July 2007. The intention is to have by then a new, more permanent arrangement for handing over PNR data. We will aim to start talks on this, which are not expected to be easy, as soon as possible. A new negotiating mandate is being drawn up at the moment.
The significance of the new PNR agreement to be negotiated in 2007 is underlined in the light of the information that has recently been made public with regard to the Automatic Targeting System (ATS) employed by the US authorities. This system collates information from various different sources, including PNR data on air passengers arriving in the United States. Its purpose is to make it easier to prepare risk assessments on passengers.
The existence of the ATS has been known to the Council and the Commission since the joint review of the first PNR agreement’s application was conducted in September 2005. The US Department of Homeland Security did not make the system known to the public, however, until 2 November this year, when the news was published in a US official organ."@en1
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