The United States and Europe clinched a deal on Friday giving US law enforcement agencies easier access to personal data on transatlantic air passengers to fight terrorism, ending a legal limbo for airlines.
The European Union's highest court struck down a past agreement after a European Parliament challenge prompted by privacy concerns. That expired last Saturday, creating a legal vacuum airlines feared could expose them to breach of privacy suits.
EU lawmakers raised worries that Washington was riding roughshod over data protection concerns in its quest after the September 11, 2001 attacks to further a "war on terrorism" whose tactics many Europeans question. One Greek left-wing deputy accused the EU of having "totally caved in" to US pressure.
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the deal, clinched in nine hours of overnight negotiations, would make it easier for US law enforcement agencies to obtain the information without giving them automatic electronic access.
"We are not talking about more data or more exchanges, we are talking about making it easier to transmit data," he told a news briefing at an EU justice ministers' meeting in Luxembourg.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agreement satisfied US security needs and would allow earlier access to data if needed -- with airlines maybe having to provide it more than 72 hours before departure.
"Obviously (US agencies) will abide by the general privacy rules that we have agreed to," he said in an interview.
EU chief negotiator Jonathan Faull said the amount of data supplied would not increase and the EU had US undertakings on how it would be used, by whom and how long it would be kept.
"We can be sure that all the American agencies provide an acceptable, satisfactory system of data protection," he said. "Not exactly the same as ours... but of equivalent value."
Airlines welcomed the deal. "This is an important agreement that will ensure normal operations for the 105,000 passengers who fly between these two jurisdictions each day," Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement.
Others were less happy. Graham Watson, leader of the EU Parliament's Liberal and Democrat group called the deal the "least worst option" but said it remained very concerned.
"It seems clear... that the current American administration is determined to extract ever more personal data and share it with the wider intelligence community," he said.
"It seems that the European Union has totally caved in to US blackmail," Dimitris Papadimoulis, a Greek left-wing European Parliament deputy said.
European airlines must pass on up to 34 items of data, including passenger addresses, telephone numbers and credit card details, to be allowed to land at US airports. The measures were introduced after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
The new pact, which EU governments should formally approve next week, will apply only until July 2007. The two sides will negotiate a long-term agreement in the meantime and Brussels is bound to face US demands for more data and fewer restrictions.
Frattini said that instead of accessing data directly from airlines, US authorities would have to request it, a system that would be piloted before the end of the year.
"It's not direct access and not a power to pull in data," he said, adding that the US Department of Homeland Security would "facilitate" disclosure to other agencies combatting terrorism.
Faull said the data would principally be used by the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. He did not exclude its use by the Central Intelligence Agency, but added: "The CIA is not a significant authority in this respect any more."
