The government is to allow the Tax Authority, GNR, the Public Security Police, the Maritime Police and the Foreigners & Borders Service to have access to all the information held by airlines on Portuguese and foreign passengers arriving and leaving Portugal.
The legislation will be pushed through under the catch-all ‘fight against terrorism and organised and serious crime,’ but the information will be widely available from a new department of the Secret Service, despite these areas being among the competencies of the Judicial Police.
Toa hasten privacy's 'death by 1,000 cuts,' the government has decided to create a 'special unit' to be run by the Internal Security Service (SSI), thus burying accountability behind 'need to know basis' security walls.
The thrust of this latest loss of privacy and (mis)use of personal data, collected as a result of citizens' travel arrangements, comes from Europe where the EC wants to know all details of all citizens, but fails to admit this universal truth of all governments.
In April 2016, the European Commission approved a directive requiring all Member States to create conditions for their authorities to access such data, as already was the case in the US, by financing them with €70 million for this purpose.
The EU directive now has been adopted in the Portuguese parliament on Friday, July 7th, with the support of the opposition PSD party, against the wishes of the Left Bloc and Communist Party and with a feeble abstention from the CDS which one day may offer us an opinion.
The collection and processing of mass information on travellers, whether under suspicion of not, can and will be stored for five years.
Airlines have huge amounts of personal data in addition to customer name, address and contacts, payment card information and where people are heading.
A total of 19 fields (see below) are stored in airline companies' databases, for commercial purposes, according to the law but these now will be used for Secret Sevice purposes under laws that may be skirted around as citizens have no access to the internal workings and performance of this agency.
Portugal will have to set up a Passenger Information Office (GIP) at the Single Point of Contact for International Police Cooperation (PUC-CPI), under the coordination of the Internal Security Service. This opens the door for most of Portugal’s agencies to access a traveller’s personal data, including the Tax Authority.
The law remains a draft law for the time being as it need to be discussed by the Committee on Rights Freedoms and Guarantees - which should produce some interesting responses.
The Left Bloc and Communists completely disagree with the widespread use of personal data.
The Bloc’s Jose Manuel Pureza believes that the idea, "grossly violates the rule of law" and spared no criticism, adding concerns that, “the government does not define who are the competent authorities that may access the data, they seem to be hiding something, which causes us perplexity."
The Bloquistas also are concerned that the date will be run by the Secret Service and not by the police.
António Filipe, from the Communists, said that, "every citizen is logged and airlines become police aides," and the data, "all end up with the SSI without a judicial authority present - nothing justifies this and it is disproportionate from the point of view of rights, freedoms of guarantees of citizens.”
What information will the police have access to?
1. PNR registration identification code;
2. Date of reservation / issuance of ticket;
3. Date (s) of the intended journey;
4. Name (s);
5. Address and contact information (telephone number, e-mail address);
6. All information on the payment arrangements, including the billing address;
7. full itinerary for the passenger concerned;
8. Frequent flyer information;
9. Agency / travel agent;
10. Situation of the passenger, including confirmations, registration status, no-show or last-minute passenger without reservation;
11. Separate / split passenger information;
12. General comments, including all information available on unaccompanied minors under the age of 18, such as the name and gender of the minor, age, language (s) spoken, name and contact details of the person accompanying him at the time of departure and its relation to the minor, name and contact details of the person accompanying him / her at the time of arrival and their relationship with the minor, agent present at departure and arrival;
13. Information on ticketing, including number of tickets, date of issue, one-way tickets, ATFQ (Automatic Ticket Fare Quote) data;
14. Place number and other location information;
15. Information about code sharing;
16. all information relating to luggage;
17. Number and other names of passengers;
18. All prior passenger information (API data) that has been collected, including type and number of document (s), issuing country and expiration date of the document (s), nationality, name (s) ) and surname (s), sex, date of birth, airline, flight number, date of departure, date of arrival, departure airport, arrival airport, departure time and arrival time;
19. Complete history of modifications of the PNR data listed in the previous numbers.
What criminal investigation categories allows access to this data?
1. Participation in criminal association;
2. Trafficking in human beings;
3. Sexual exploitation and child pornography;
4. Trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances;
5. Trafficking in arms, ammunition and explosives;
6. Corruption;
7. Fraud, including fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union within the meaning of the Convention of 26 July 1995 on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests;
8. Laundering of the proceeds of crime and counterfeiting of money, including the euro;
9. Computer crime and cybercrime;
10. Environmental crime, including trafficking in endangered animal species and endangered plant species and varieties;
11. Aid for irregular entry and stay;
12. Voluntary manslaughter, serious physical offense
13. Trafficking in human organs and tissues;
14. Abduction, kidnapping and hostage-taking;
15. Theft or organized or armed robbery;
16. Trafficking in cultural goods, including antiques and works of art;
17. Counterfeiting, imitation and illegal use of trademarks;
18. Falsification of administrative documents and their traffic;
19. Trafficking in hormonal substances and other growth promoters;
20. Trafficking in nuclear and radioactive materials;
21. Violation;
22. Crimes covered by the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court;
23. Deviation from an airplane or ship;
24. Sabotage;
25. Trafficking in stolen or stolen vehicles;
26. Industrial espionage.
Which just about covers everything.
