Bonn, 14th december 2022
Press release 13/2022
EDPB calls for implementation of the judgment on the PNR Directive
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has called on EU Member States to implement immediately the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on PNR in order to protect citizens' fundamental rights. The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI), Professor Ulrich Kelber, fully supports this demand. Germany should quickly adapt the Passenger Name Record Act in accordance with the ECJ’s judgment.
In this regard, the BfDI said: "The ECJ ruled in June that the directive on so-called Passenger Name Records or PNR data is still valid, but must be interpreted much more restrictively in the future. Since this landmark ruling, however, nothing has changed in Germany or in many Member States, as far as I know. My authority has been pointing out to the legislator for years that there is a considerable need for improvement in the national implementation. That is why my authority took a leading role in drafting the EDPB's joint opinion."
The German Passenger Name Record Act currently does not comply with all ECJ requirements. For example, it collects all data from passengers on flights within the EU. In 2021, a total of 73 million passengers were transported in Germany. More than 40 million of those passengers were on so-called intra-EU flights, the general inclusion of which the ECJ has found to be fundamentally inadmissible. In addition, the PNR data are stored for a five-year period. The processing purposes do not justify these long storage periods. The measures to be taken immediately to protect fundamental rights should additionally include the processing of PNR data by the controllers, such as the Passenger Information Unit at the Federal Criminal Police Office.
The BfDI's statement (in German) on the Passenger Name Record Act of 2017 has therefore lost none of its relevance.