EU and governments must come clean on traveller 'profiling'

12.35.00pm GMT Wed 23rd Jan 2008

On the eve of an informal meeting of European justice and interior ministers which will discuss the Commission proposal for an EU system of collection of passenger data, the European Parliament's civil liberties committee has agreed to draw up a report on the subject of 'profiling' in counter-terrorism, policing and border control.

This is a technique of putting together data from various sources in order to identify people who seem suspicious and merit further screening or are likely perpetrators of crime or terrorism. The proposed EU Passenger Name Record scheme would create risk assessments by 'running the PNR data of passengers against a combination of characteristics and behavioural patterns'.

The EP report will be drafted by British MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, Liberal Democrat European justice spokeswoman, who said:

"The first challenge is to get Commissioner Frattini and the ministers to acknowledge that 'profiling' is going on, instead of the coyness and denials being trotted out to date. Then we can talk about safeguards to stop unjustified stereotyping or abuses which could lead to real damage to individuals."

"It needs to be remembered that Canadian torture flight victim Maher Arar, on whose horrendous experience the film Rendition was based, was picked up through profiling based on people his brother happened to know."

"The danger of targeting people on the basis of race or religion is especially acute. The mere fact that someone was born in Pakistan must not lead to systematic searches at our airports. We need to ensure that all our citizens feel and are treated equally under the law."

"The UK Labour government by its negligence in handling data has exposed 600,000 armed services recruits to possible threat from extremist or terrorist groups. This includes Muslim recruits, so it can make amends by not colluding in an exercise which stigmatises minorities."