Sally McNamaraPassenger Name Record Agreement • May 11th, 2009
The EU–U.S. passenger name record (PNR) agreement—implemented in the wake of 9/11—is an information-sharing program requiring that key pieces of data on travelers to the U.S. be provided to American authorities prior to their arrival in the U.S. This information must be provided under U.S. law, and in May 2004, the EU and the U.S. entered into a formal agreement stating that airlines operating U.S.-bound flights would provide U.S. authorities with travelers’ data contained in their reservation systems before a flight’s departure.
NOTEPassenger Name Record Agreement • June 11th, 2009
On August 10, 2006, London police successfully stopped a group of terrorists plotting to use liquid explosives to bomb nine planes flying from the United Kingdom to the United States.1 The plot- ters had hoped to set off these explosives mid-flight, killing an esti- mated 2,700 passengers.2 Several weeks after the arrests, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he claimed that these terrorist plots failed “precisely because of timely, actionable intelligence, properly shared and acted upon before the terrorists could carry out their plans.”3 He noted that one investigative resource essential to continued success in this area was passenger name record (PNR) data, information, gathered by airlines and travel agencies, which include such valuable clues as “travel itiner- aries and payment details.”4 Chertoff then lamented that despite agreements with European partners, the United States remained “handcuffed in our abi
Fact Sheet: US-EU Passenger Name Record Agreement SignedPassenger Name Record Agreement • August 30th, 2007
On May 17, the European Commission announced that it had found the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's program to collect air passenger data regarding flights between the U.S. and the European Union (EU) adequate under EU laws. This announcement was the culmination of more than a year of negotiations between the United States and the European Commission. The agreement pertains to airline passenger data collected by Homeland Security's U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), for use in screening passengers destined to and departing from the United States.
