| privacy 2003-09-10 |
| The United States has softened demands that Switzerland's national airline, Swiss, hand over more data on its passengers to the US authorities.
Swiss was facing a deadline of September 12 to adhere to the new regulations or risk losing landing rights in the US. The Swiss Civil Aviation Office said on Wednesday that the US had agreed to give Swiss more time to comply with the regulations, introduced in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Urs Haldimann from the Office said a new deadline had not yet been set, and that discussions were continuing. Switzerland had asked the US to delay the deadline to allow time for negotiation on an issue which has outraged data protection groups. US authorities want Swiss to furnish them with personal details of all passengers including their religion and dietary preferences. It is demanding the same information from all airlines. The Swiss want to come up with an agreement which would give the US the information it wants while respecting Bern's data protection laws. Switzerland wants to negotiate alongside the European Union which is also concerned about the data protection issue. To date, only Finland has agreed to the US demands. Airlines currently provide passenger information such as the seat number, address, telephone number and payment details. |
| Read more... |