e-ignite

An incredible news story was recently published by the Telegraph that shows details of just how much information about you is given to the US authorities if you fly from Europe to America.? A recent Freedom of Information request showed that when you book your flights to the USA electronically (using a Credit Card, giving an email address etc), the US authorities have the right to examine past purchases on your credit card, and even to gain access to your past emails. The news article goes into detail about the previous fight between the EU and US over illegal passenger data transfer, but shows that the US has demanded access to far more data than they did originally.? What is most worrying is the fact the the European Union seems to have simply rolled over and given the US whatever they wanted!

Personally, I can’t decide who is most at fault in this case. The American Government can’t possibly be allowed to continue with their bully-boy tactics to gain access to whatever information they want.? They seem to cite “terrorism” as the key to any obstructive force.? On the other hand, the EU are providing their residents with no protection whatsoever from this blatant abuse of position and invasion of privacy.

If you must fly to the USA, perhaps you should consider paying cash.? If this isn’t possible, why not get a second credit card for air travel only (with a separate financial company than your primary one). ? Also, it would be a very good idea to use a disposable email address (such as Hotmail or Yahoo Mail) for flight booking information only - again, use a company that does not already host your primary email service.? This is a proactive way of protecting your legal right to privacy.? Alternatively, all be it less practically, why not simply encrypt every single one of your emails so that they can’t read them even if they do get access to them?

So, do I think people will read this and take all the action I’ve suggested?? No.

Do I think people will stop travelling to the US because of this?? Probably not.

Do I therefore think that what they’re doing is ok and doesn’t really make any difference?? Absolutely not.

This is my point about abuse of position.? Thousands upon thousands of Europeans must travel to the United States for many reasons - it seems that now they have to give up their privacy in order to do so. ? The US authorities demanded access to the data, threatening the EU with many “adverse effects on travellers” if they didn’t comply.? The EU have (wrongly in my opinion) caved into this pressure and the US authorities get what they wanted with no further opposition.? There is simply no way that a law in America would be passed where travellers within the country had to hand over so much data to the authorities, so why should we???

And what do the EU get in return for this major invasion of their people’s privacy?? I’ll quote from the article:

Washington promised to “encourage” US airlines to make similar information available to EU governments — rather than compel them to do so.?