EU plans to collect personal data on air passengers

By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will seek to collect personal data on air passengers travelling to or from the 27-nation bloc and store them for 13 years, under draft anti-terrorism proposals to be unveiled on Tuesday.

The bloc's executive Commission will tell EU states they need to collect 19 pieces of personal data on international air travellers including phone number, e-mail adress, payment details and travel agent, a draft seen by Reuters shows.

The plan mirrors a scheme put in place by the United States to collect Passenger Name Record (PNR) information after the 9/11 attacks.

"The availability of PNR data ... is necessary for the purpose of preventing and fighting terrorist offences and organised crime," the draft says.

Airlines would need to send the information to the first EU state where a plane is to land, the draft shows.

A Commission official said the system would not burden air carriers as they already collect such data for commercial purposes. "It is nothing new to information they already collect -- no new burdens on that," the official told Reuters.

The official said the draft was not final and elements such as how long data is kept could still change when officials meet on Monday and Tuesday to fine-tune it.

The text will then need to be adopted unanimously by EU states to become law.