The European Commission is to put forward, on Tuesday 6 November, a proposal to collect personal data (PNR) on everyone flying in and out of the EU.

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/nov/01eu-pnr.htm

Yet another example of "Big Brother is watching", and a violation of our rights to privacy, - or a realistic attempt to control the activities of terrorist organisations ?

See, in things like this I'm wondering what it will really matter if they know that when and where I flew into the EU? If I haven't done anything wrong or if I don't have a suitcase full of explosives then I don't tend to care if anyone knows when I flew somewhere.

Good point Copago, the question here though is how that information will be used.

There are 10's of millions of us every year who fly into and out of the EU countries, as well as flights within the EU - the overwhelming majority of those people are perfectly law abiding, innocent people, and many feel aggrieved that they are to be monitored as potential "suspects".

I don't think they are being monitored as potential suspects but to weed out the potential suspects amongst all the law abiding travellers. If I were to get on a plane I wouldn't mind at all if they'd done a little bit of checking on all the passengers to ensure the safety of the flight.

I would, on the other hand, be just ever so slightly peeved if they hadn't done any rudimentary checking and some person with hand luggage that had a strange ticking sound was waved on with everyone else. (yes, i know that's a bit OTT but you get the jist )

I would think that so many of people's every day actions are being tracked in some way that adding to it that "big brother" knew you'd gone to France for the weekend isn't a great leap into a new level of privacy violation.

I totally agree that it would be extremely dangerous not to have any form of checking done at airports and so forth.

I travel back and forth to France from UK regularly, and the security at the airports is TIGHT. In my opinion it is enough to discourage all but the most determined of terrorists - so why the need to have a central database logging the movements of EVERYONE?

I'm in the US. Hope it's ok to say something...Recently, my daughter and I were traveling from Anchorage to Reno, with a 11 hour (yes, 11!) layover in Seattle. I smoke, so in those 11 hours, I trudged through Security 3 times, with the same purse, same shoes, etc. Twice, I buzzed in and out in about 2 minutes, shoes off, bag on belt, the whole bit.
The third time, it took 20 minutes! I waited while my (same) purse was searched, item by item. The only difference in the other 2 times, was one less cigarette each time! Just thought that was interesting. If I wanted to take banned items in, I guess I could have, in either of the first 2 smoke breaks!

What is security like at regional airports in the EU? Here in Australia, there are no checks at regional airports - there are signs that tell you what you can and can't take with you on the plane, but nobody is there to enforce the rules.

I know we don't have many 747's flying from rural areas (as in 9/11 style terrorism), but still. I could fly in from Cow-Pat, Queensland, with a bomb strapped to my chest, if only I have the nerves of steel that it takes to walk past the sign telling me that it's not okay.

I see paranioa is still alive and doing well. If "Big Brother" wants to watch people that closely, he'd better shut his eyes when I'm in the shower.
Gathering information on everyone isn't going to help keep anyone safe.

Quote:

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The European Commission is to put forward, on Tuesday 6 November, a proposal to collect personal data (PNR) on everyone flying in and out of the EU.

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Could it be that this is a preemptive move to ensure that Turkeys citizens will not scream racism if the process is brought in when Turkey becomes part of the E.U.?

When I was teaching in China I know that the government knew exactly where I travelled to at any time.
That is the nature of their government.
We, on the other hand are supposedly living in a "free world".

How is the tracking of everybody going to make any difference to those who are travelling on false passports?

We've recently had a case of a man trying to immigrate to Canada from Poland. Due to a series of as yet unexplained mishaps he ended up spending about 10 hours in the "secure" area at Vancouver airport, with nobody approaching him to ask what he was still doing there or even wondering about it. In the meantime, his mother was waiting for him in the public area, asking numerous officials about him and nobody could make the connection where he was - they told her he wasn't there. The poor man finally had a total mental meltdown and started screaming and throwing things. I can totally relate to this after coming off my last 12h international flight and having to wait 1-1/2h to go through immigration. Then the police were called, tasered him (unslear how many times) and tragically he died.

This is the same airport security that takes a little bottle of shampoo away from you because it's more than 100 mL. Just a big joke in my opinion. If I were a terrorist, which I'm not, I'd be laughing my head off every time I see the line-ups, while thinking of all kinds of other attacks that don't involve airplanes. The way to fight terrorism is to fight the root causes, going way back to the injustices created in colonial days, but that's a topic for a different thread.

The craziest security experience I've had happened to me at Ringway airport, Manchester, England, about to board a flight to Israel. (returning home from a family wedding, with my young teenage daughter)

I felt a bit sorry for the security personnel because we were both using backpacks with a lot of pockets and they had to check them all. After the check I walked to the other end of the lounge with my daughter to look through the windows at the planes, then realized, silly me, I'd left my bag on the security check table, so I went back for it (clearly empty handed)

They stopped me taking it and insisted on a complete recheck. Apparently, because I had left it, security rules mandated that they had to search the bag all over again, even though it was right in front of them the whole time. Then, thinking me suspicious because honestly I had a hard time keeping a straight face and I had made the mistake of trying to 'reason' with them - (Anglo Saxon face I might add, I was born less than twenty miles from there) they gave me a frisk and shoe check while I fought between the annoyance, a tinge of humiliation and the desire to laugh out loud at the whole thing.

Hey, but I'm glad they're being thorough on a flight home to Israel!