Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the joint review of the implementation of the agreement between the European Union and Australia on the processing and transfer of passenger name record (PNR) data by air carriers to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service

The Agreement between the European Union (EU) and Australia on the processing and transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data by air carriers to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) entered into force on 1 June 2012.

The Agreement provides for a first joint review one year after its entry into force and regularly thereafter as jointly agreed. This joint review was carried out in Canberra on 29 and 30 August 2013. Its main focus was the implementation of the Agreement, with particular attention to the mechanism of masking out data as well as the transfers of EU citizens’ and residents’ PNR data to the authorities of third countries as set out in the relevant articles of the Agreement, and in accordance with the Joint Declaration of the EU and Australia on the Agreement.

The joint review was based on the methodology applied in previous PNR joint reviews with the United States (2005, 2013) and Canada (2008). The first part of this methodology consisted of a questionnaire sent by the European Commission to ACBPS prior to the joint review. ACBPS provided written replies to the questionnaire prior to the joint review. The second part consisted of a visit to the ACBPS Passenger Analysis Unit by the EU team. The third part consisted of a meeting between representatives of ACBPS, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Australian Privacy Commissioner and the EU team, discussing in detail the implementation of the Agreement.

The Joint Review Report accompanying this Report consists of three Chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the background to the review and the purpose and procedural aspects of the exercise. Chapter 2 presents the main findings of the joint review. This Chapter is supplemented by Annex A which contains the questionnaire and replies by ACBPS thereto. Finally, Chapter 3 presents the overall conclusions of the exercise. Annex B lists the composition of the EU and Australian teams that carried out the review exercise. The examples provided by ACBPS of the use of PNR data in Australia appear in Annex C.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)458: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:458:FIN

EUR-Lex: SWD(2014)236: Joint Review Report of the implementation of the Agreement between the European Union and Australia on the processing and transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data by air carriers to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2014:236:FIN

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