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Traveling to the US could trigger a loss of privacy

"It is making the act of buying a ticket a gateway to a host of personal e-mail and financial information."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human-rights group Liberty

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.
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