Experts urge EU and US to strike privacy deal amid row over air passenger data sharing

Trade blocs encouraged to reach agreement at next week's summit in Brussels

After 9/11, authorities in Europe agreed to share sensitive details about outbound travellers with the US in return for certain privacy protections. AFP

Experts are urging the US and the EU to strike an agreement for digital privacy amid a continuing dispute over the sharing of civilian airline passenger data.

Experts at an online Atlantic Council event said the clash between national security and civil liberties is set to grow unless a deal on sharing information can be reached.

After 9/11, authorities in Europe agreed to share sensitive information about outbound travellers with the US Department of Homeland Security in return for privacy protection.

Data such as passenger name records includes information on air passengers' email addresses, itineraries and credit card numbers.

The records have been used by many countries in recent years to help foil terror attacks and prevent funding of extremist activity.

But the previously successful data-sharing agreement has come under scrutiny from European privacy campaigners, especially after a 2017 EU Court of Justice opinion that demanded new privacy rules.

Those rules are incompatible with how US authorities have used the records.

At the council's "Avoiding the Next Transatlantic Security Crisis" event, Dr Frances Burwell, senior director at McLarty Associates, said the digital economy between the US and the EU was of growing importance.

An summit between the EU and US in Brussels on June 15 would be an ideal time to create the basis for a transatlantic agreement on the use of passenger data, Dr Burwell said.

She said now was the time to think about an agreement and that it would be unsustainable to continue without a "better basis for the transfer of data".

"It is the growing part of our economic relationship and therefore any rules, any arrangements, that we make between ourselves that have to do with data transfers, et cetera, are only going to become much more important in the future," Dr Burwell said.

She said every democracy that has tried to tackle online privacy and national security faced challenges that would grow as data protocols spread around the world.

"This is something that every democracy struggles with," Dr Burwell said. "This is not just a US issue and a European issue.

"So I'm hoping that we will see the establishment next week of a digital council or tech and trade council, whatever you call it – some high-level forum that will provide oversight for these issues and provide the political impetus to get them moving towards resolution."

Despite the difference of opinion, the two sides were "pretty close to each other" and Europe has had the same impetus to stop terror activities, such as the 2015 Paris attacks.

Ken Propp, professor of EU law at Georgetown University, told the event that the US must take advantage of the EU as it is in a "reflection period" on data law.

The perception that the US is reckless about privacy rights is something policymakers will have to contend with in the future, Prof Propp said.

He said the US would soon be the last significant country in the world without a comprehensive privacy law, a situation he called "catastrophic".

"China's going to pass [a law], India's going to pass one," Prof Propp said. "The perception of that is really a problem in the international forum."

But he said he was hopeful agreements on data retention and deletion could be drawn up in future bilateral discussions.