The European Court of Justice has blocked an agreement
that forces airlines to hand over passenger data to the US
authorities.
The handover of passenger data had been agreed between the
European Union and the US, but the court ruled that the deal was
not founded on an "appropriate legal basis".
The EU ordered airlines to provide data on passengers flying to
the US from Europe – including names, addresses, forms of payment,
contact phone numbers and other details - in May 2004. The
information is handed to the US Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection.
The US said the data would be used to help fight terrorism, but
the deal has been opposed by the European Parliament, which argued
that the data could be misused and that there were insufficiently
strong guarantees on data protection.
The European Data Protection Supervisor intervened in support of
the Parliament, in its first ever intervention before the European
Court.
The court ruled that there was not “an appropriate legal basis”
either for the agreement to hand over the information, or for a
European Commission’s finding that the data was adequately
protected by the US, nor the agreement to hand the information
over, the court ruled. Fundamental data protection rights had “been
infringed”, it said.