EU-Canada passenger data sharing could violate European law

The agreement between the EU and Canada to share airline passenger data to combat terrorism is incompatible with EU law in its current form, the adviser to the EU’s top court said Thursday. If backed up in a final ruling by the European Court of Justice in coming months, the advocate general’s opinion could undermine similar EU agreements with the US and others. It could also sow fresh legal doubts about tighter data collection rules passed earlier this year, one of the centerpieces of the bloc’s response to the wave of attacks in Europe. Under the agreement, so-called Passenger Name Records data would be transferred to Canadian authorities. The Canadians would be allowed to analyse the records, store them and, in some cases, transfer them to other countries. The agreement between the EU and Canada, signed in 2014, must still be approved by the European Parliament before coming into force. EU lawmakers voted to refer the agreement to the European Court of Justice last year because of concerns over data privacy. In a nonbinding opinion published Thursday, ECJ Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi said a number of provisions in the draft deal were incompatible with fundamental EU rights and others raised serious legal concerns. The court’s judges usually uphold the advocate general opinions. Among the problems identified are the need to properly target heightened scrutiny against people suspected of participating in terrorist offenses or serious transnational crime and to justify why the agreement allows some data to be retained for up to five years.<br/>