Outsourcer SITA has gone live with a system for
filtering sensitive passenger information on behalf of EU airlines
and others flying into North America.
The system aims to overcome a row between the US government, the
European Union and other states over the transfer of passenger data
for security checks.
The Canadian government contracted SITA globally to transfer
airline Passenger Name Record (PNR) data compiled from booking and
check-in records.
SITA has now developed a service on behalf of the airlines for
filtering out sensitive fields of information which would be in
breach of Canadian and EU privacy legislation.
The service has now been adopted by seven airlines flying into
Canada: Alitalia, Czech, KLM, Martinair, Olympic, Swiss and “one
leading US carrier”.
Tom Marten, SITA vice president for government and security
business, said SITA acted as an intermediary between the airline
and the receiving government.
He said, “We extract the PNR data from the airline’s
reservations and departure control systems and push it across our
secure network after the sensitive fields of information have been
filtered out. None of the PNR data is saved on our system once it
has been exported.”
Marten said the system helped airlines meet their dual
obligations. On the one hand, they must protect the data of their
passengers and conform to national and international privacy
directives. On the other hand, they must provide limited
information on passengers according to the laws of countries
seeking to improve national security.
Without using the SITA system, the airlines which have already
signed up would have had to build an equivalent solution
themselves.
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