Britain is trying to set up an EU-wide network of travel databases to record the movements and personal details of millions of air passengers within Europe
The home secretary, Theresa May, is hoping that, when they meet on Monday, European justice and home affairs ministers will back a massive expansion of EU proposals, which as they stand would apply only to flights in and out of Europe and see travellers' details anonymised after 30 days.
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| Theresa May, the home secretary, is meeting European justice and home affairs ministers on Monday to discuss proposals for collecting passenger records. |
May, who was elected on a pledge to scale back the "database state", has been lobbying hard for the data – known as passenger name records (PNR) – to also be collected for flights within Europe, tripling the number of journeys tracked. She wants the data to be stored for up to six years.
The home secretary has already won the backing of 17 other EU member states for the move but is heading for a civil liberties clash with the European parliament and the German government.
She has argued that the expansion is needed to combat terrorism but critics say it will involve the storage of a huge amount of personal data, leaving room for random profiling.
PNR data is already collected for flights between Europe and America, with the airlines required to pass on passenger booking details to authorities.
The 19 separate items of personal information involved include home address, passport number, credit card details, mobile phone number and the traveller's itinerary.
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