Czech government accepts the new PNR agreement with reservations

By EDRi · August 1, 2007

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

On the 18 July 2007, the Czech government approved, with signficant
reservations, the new PNR agreement prepared by the European Commission with
the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS).

During the short period of consultations among the Czech authorities and
politicians on the new agreement, the Czech Data Protection Authority stated
that the current proposal deteriorated the level of protection of personal
data. The Czech Data Protection Authority however did not clearly oppose the
new agreement.

Following the EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium lobbing activities, the Green
Party MP Katerina Jacques took up the position of the privacy activists
group and pushed for stricter and more binding assurances to protect data of
the citizens in relation to the new agreement. Responding to this
opposition, the Czech Ministry of Foreign affairs adopted the following
position:
“The Czech Republic will keep the reservation that would allow the National
Parliament of the Czech Republic to scrutinize thoroughly the text of the
Agreement with a special attention to guarantees of the appropriate level of
Personal Data Protection of the EU Citizens.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg, will present the
unilateral Czech declaration to the agreement at the next session of GAERC,
and the same declaration was presented by the Czech deputy at the session of
COREPER II on 19 July 2007.

Czech Government Declaration to the US-EU PNR Agreement (19.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/docs/CZ_Declaration_PNR.pdf

PNR – Wrong agreement succeeded so far (in Czech only, 20.07.2007)
http://www.slidilove.cz/kampane/pnr.html

EDRI-gram: PNR deal ratification postponed by the Czech Senate (9.05.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/pnr-czech-republic

Observatory on the exchange of data on passengers (PNR) with USA
http://www.statewatch.org/pnrobservatory.htm

(Thanks to Marek Tichy – EDRI-member Iuridicum Remedium, Czech Republic)