House passes law requiring airlines to hand over passengers’ travel history

Parliament on Friday approved a law transposing the EU PNR (passenger name record) directive, which requires air carriers to transfer to member states the passenger name record they have collected in the normal course of their business.

The vote was passed by 24 to 16.

The information passengers must provide includes in addition to full name, address and contact details, all payment details including billing address, passenger’s travel history including booking confirmations, ticket checks, passenger arrival information, ticket number, date of issue, seating number and all baggage information.

The plenum also passed an amendment increasing the penalties for violations relating to the management of the data.

The prison sentence was raised from three to five years and the fine from €17,000 to €30,000.

Akel MP Aristos Damianou suggested the bill was part of an objective to make Cyprus the farthest outpost of the EU’s military action. He said it made Cyprus part of the problem of terrorism and argued that PNR was ineffective and disproportionate to the issue it was trying to resolve.

Damianou said the solution to the problem must be sought in the policies across the Atlantic and the EU which foment terrorism.