Britons and other Europeans who fly to the US could have their credit-card transactions as well as e-mail messages inspected by US officials, a British newspaper reported yesterday.
Under a US-EU deal struck in October, the Daily Telegraph said passengers face having other transactions on their credit cards inspected by US authorities if they use the card to reserve flights.
Under the headline "license to snoop" on flying Britons, the daily added that passengers who provide an e-mail address to an airline could see other messages sent or received on that account studied by the US government.
The paper said the details were revealed in "undertakings" given by the US Department of Homeland Security to the EU and published by Britain's Department for Transport following a Freedom of Information request.
A department spokesman told the Telegraph: "Every airline is obliged to conform with these rules if they wish to continue flying. As part of the terms of carriage, it is made clear to passengers what these requirements are."
"The US government has given undertakings on how this data will be used and who will see it," he said.
However, Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human-rights group Liberty, was quoted as telling the newspaper she was horrified at the extent of the information made available.
"It is making the act of buying a ticket a gateway to a host of personal e-mail and financial information. While there are safeguards, it appears you would have to go to a US court to assert your rights," Chakrabarti said.
With the security clampdown that followed the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, Washington demanded that airlines yield full details about passengers before allowing them to land, the newspaper said.
However, EU governments threatened to impose heavy fines on the airlines for breaches of European data protection legislation.
In October, the EU agreed to remove the "bureaucratic hurdles" preventing airlines handing over such information after the US authorities threatened to bar European carriers. Washington meanwhile promised to "encourage" US airlines to make similar information available to EU governments rather than force them to do so, the newspaper said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS