Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the joint review of the implementation of the agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of passenger name records to the United States Department of Homeland Security

The current Agreement between the United States and the European Union on the use and transfer of passenger name records to the United States Department of Homeland Security entered into force on 1 July 2012. The Agreement provides for a first joint review one year after its entry into force and regularly thereafter as jointly agreed.

This joint review was carried out on 8 and 9 July 2013 in Washington. Its main focus was the implementation of the Agreement, with particular attention to the method of transmission of passenger name records (PNR) as well as the onward transfer of PNR as set out in the relevant articles of the Agreement, and in accordance with recital No 18 of the Agreement.

The joint review is based on the methodology developed between the EU and the U.S. teams for the first joint review of the 2004 PNR Agreement, which took place in September 2005. The first part of this methodology consisted of a questionnaire sent by the European Commission to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prior to the joint review. DHS provided written replies to the questionnaire prior to the joint review. The second part consisted of a field visit to a DHS operation center by the EU team. The third part consisted of a meeting between representatives of DHS, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S Department of State, the EU team and the DHS Privacy Office, discussing in detail the implementation of the Agreement.

A preliminary assessment of the question whether PNR serves the purpose of supporting the fight against terrorism and other crimes that are transnational in nature showed that PNR provides DHS with the possibility of carrying out pre-departure assessments of all passengers up to 96 hours which gives DHS sufficient time to carry out all the background checks before the arrival of a passenger and prepare its response. This processing also supports DHS when deciding if a passenger should board a plane or not.

It also provides DHS with the opportunity to perform risk assessments on the basis of scenario-based targeting rules in order to identify the ‘unknown’ potential high-risk individuals. PNR further provides the possibility to make associations between passengers and identify criminals who belong to the same organised crime group. According to DHS PNR is also successfully used for identifying trends of how criminals tend to behave when they travel, for example by understanding which routes they use.

See also:
- Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Joint Report from the Commission and the U.S. Treasury Department regarding the value of TFTP Provided Data pursuant to Article 6 (6) of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

EUR-Lex: SEC(2013)630: Joint Review of the implementation of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of passenger name records to the United States Department of Homeland Security http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SEC:2013:630:FIN

ESO: Background information: EU-US agreements: Commission reports on TFTP and PNR http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-eu-us-agreements-commission-reports-on-tftp-and-pnr/

---