May pushes for expansion of the Passenger Name Records scheme

Over at The Guardian, Alan Travis has written a piece about the Home Secretary's attempts to push European leaders into adopt a scheme designed to collect even more details from passengers travelling in and out of the European Union. 

While some information is already shared between EU member states and the United States, Theresa May's proposal would see information on travellers' movements logged for up to six months and then stored in an anonymised form for up to five years.

It's deeply regrettable that the Home Secretary wishes to adopt such an invasive and illberal policy. 

The Passenger Name Records scheme would represent a significant threat to the personal privacy of travellers.  While a limited amount of information is already shared among EU member state, Theresa May's PRN proposal would see personal data retained for up to six years. The state has no reason – and no right – to track people’s movements in this way, let alone to log their credit card details and the identities of their travel companions.

A government elected on a promise to scale back the database state should be an opponent of this type of policy, not its biggest cheerleader.

Comments

[freedom?]

Is this the government that is promoting a Freedom Bill by any chance?

[Time Traveller]

I am more disappointed to see that Damian Green is pushing for this further assault on liberty. He, of all people, should understand how authoritarian and corrosive unbridled state intrusion can be.

More expense and more control of the indigenous population. Meanwhile, we're sinking under uncontrolled immigration from North Africa via the EU portal in Italy...

[RM]

'Welcome to the new Boss, same as the old Boss'.

Seems to be that once a Party gets into power, whatever their weasel words beforehand, they just can't resist the lure of 'surveillance' and 'databases'.

Have put the link to this story on Liberty's FB page & my own & sent it to my local Cllr. (who's Lib Dem) asking if the Coalition are aware how well they're acting as recruiting sergeants for UKIP & the BNP.

[Purlieu]

Don't they already have movement info even within the EU by dint of passport scan at entry point ?
Of course you can always cover over the barcode with a piece of tape, since it's not an actual legal requirement to have your barcode read before entering another EU country.
In fact isn't it officially you only need a "means of identification" which can be a driving licence ?

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[pandora charms]

'Welcome to the new Boss, same as the old Boss'.

Seems to be that once a Party gets into power, whatever their weasel words beforehand, they just can't resist the lure of 'surveillance' and 'databases'.

[sinful bikini]

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