Friday, August 25, 2006

Qwest says not calling for data retention laws| Reuters.com Telephone and broadband Web provider Qwest Communications International Inc. on Wednesday denied that it is calling for federal data retention laws in a statement responding to a story on news.com Web site. News.com had reported that Qwest's Chief Privacy Officer Jennifer Mardosz spoke in support of moves for federal data retention laws at an Aspen, Colorado, summit. Privacy rights have become a hot topic in recent months amid a controversy over whether phone operators had illegally shared customer records with government agencies working to combat terrorism. The news.com report referred to a proposal from Colorado Representative Diana DeGette that providers be required to keep subscriber data for a year to help combat child pornography. Mardosz disputed the report, saying she had been talking about Colorado State laws that are already in place, not showing support for proposed federal laws. "I misspoke," Mardosz told Reuters in a phone interview. "If there are proposals at the state or federal level we want to be involved at the table when those discussions happen. We're not asking for it." 12:33:19 PM

The Practical Nomad blog: European debate on airline reservation data Government mandates for collection of, access to, and transfer to the USA of information from airline passenger name records (PNR's) are once again on the table in the European Union, with a European court decision annulling the present EU-USA agreement on PNR data transfers and a new EU directive on the subject both taking effect next month. With those deadlines and a diplomatic crisis over trans-Atlantic USA-EU air travel looming -- a crisis both within the EU and its members and institutions, and between them and the USA -- widely varying proposals on what policy should be adopted, through what procedures, in what legal form, by what decision making body of the EU or its member nation-states, and with what degree of involvement by governments from the USA and other countries outside the EU in the development of a new global norm on logging of airline passengers' movements, are being put forward as the debate "hots up": Yesterday, a spokesperson for Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini (who holds the relevant brief on the European Commission), said that "making passenger name records (PNR) available to European governments is one of Frattini's main aims to tighten security following the exposure of a terrorist plot to bomb aircrafts flying between the UK and the US." According to another report , the spokesperson said Frattini "came up with the idea in London last week where he was discussing terrorism." But Tony Bunyan of UK-based NGO Statewatch , who has been following the issue of EU surveillance of passengers through PNR data as closely as anyone, points out that the EU already has a directive on the subject about to come into effect: "I find it very strange that the Commissioner came up with this idea last week when the measure to introduce an EU-PNR scheme was adopted in April 2004 and is due to come into effect in 12 days time," Bunyan says. The directive obligates each EU member government to enact implementing legislation or regulations by 5 September 2006 (a week from Tuesday) mandating airlines to collect and provide to the government of the destination country certain information about each passenger on a flight with a destination in the EU. It's unclear if any EU country has or will have complied with the directive by the deadline, or what (if anything) will happen if they don't. 11:53:55 AM

© Copyright 2006 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 9/2/06; 4:27:42 AM.