Europeans: Time to ask for your travel records
If you are a citizen or resident of the European Union, and have travelled to the United States, now is the time to ask for copies of your travel records.
Unlike Americans, Europeans have the right to know who is keeping records about you, what information is in your records, and to whom it has been given.
Airlines that fly from Europe to the U.S. have been illegally turning over passenger name records (PNR’s) to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Those records include where, when, and with whom you travelleled, your credit card information, and much more.
And the DHS is still not satisfied. They want more data, they want to keep it longer, and they want fewer rules about how they can use it or who they can give it to:
The chief U.S. negotiator … said Washington would push for the right to hold data on passengers for longer than the current arrangement of 3-1/2 years. “Our usual rule for law enforcement data is that it is kept for about 40 years, but the real question is how long is it likely to be relevant,” said Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Baker described restrictions included in the current accord as “almost a code of conduct for the United States” but said he was confident that negotiations due to start with Europe would lead to some of them being relaxed in any future pact.
The only way to find out what’s in your travel records, and what is being done with them, is to request them under your country’s data protection laws. Then, if the data protection law has been broken, you can complain to the authorities, or bring a lawsuit.
First, request your travel records from the travel agency or tour operator that booked your flights to the U.S., and the airline you flew on. When they respond, they should tell you which computerized reservation system (CRS) they use. Then you can request your records from the CRS as well. There might be records in two different CRS’s, with different data, if the travel agent uses one CRS to make the booking and send it to the airline, and the airline hosts its database in another CRS.
Here are sample letter for U.K. citizens and residents to request your travel records from travel agencies, tour operators, airlines, and CRS’s. If you are in another country, you can modify these to refer to your national data protection law:
- Request for PNR’s and other travel records from a travel agency or tour operator
- Request for PNR’s and other travel records from an airline
- Request for PNR’s and other travel records from a computerized reservation system
December 8th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
[...] That’s not nearly good enough. If you file comments (go to Regulations.gov, search for docket 2006-0060, scroll through the list of documents on that docket to DHS-2006-0060-0062, and click on the “add comment” icon in the right-most column) or write to your representatives in Congress or the Canadian or European Parliament, demand that the DHS shut down the ATS and destroy the dossiers they’ve been collecting — now, not waiting until next month — and that Congress and other governments demand both answers and action, not just more empty promises to obey the laws the DHS has been breaking for years. You can submit comments until 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday, December 29th. European Union citizens and residents can, and should, also demand your travel records and an accounting of what’s been given to the U.S. government. Since the ATS has been exempted from FOIA and the Privacy Act, only requests in other countries where the same airlines and reservation systems do business, under those countries’ data protection laws, will enable us to find out what’s really been going on — or bring it to a halt. [...]
December 29th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
[...] We don’t expect the DHS, especially its Privacy (invasion) Ofiice, to police itself. Keep asking questions and demand answers and action from Congress and European Union officials. If you are in the EU, request your travel records so that we can find out what has really been happening, and how they have really been used. [...]
January 30th, 2007 at 7:24 am
We have a right to know about our travel records and should definitely use it for good.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Ah there’s nothing like a bit of old fashioned paranoia to keep everybody in check and tighten their grip over everybody. Now that I know we have a right to look at our travel records I’ll make sure everybody I know is informed of this.
It’s like the data protection act, we should be able to look at the information being held about us.