U.S. and Europe reach data-sharing accord.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: Security beat: homeland defense briefs

The European Commission and the United States settled more than a year's worth of negotiations with an agreement for the Commission to share airline passenger data with the Department of Homeland Security.

The agreement sought common ground between the requirements of the U.S. customs and the European Union's data protection legislation. Finding a solution between these two sets of laws--one to protect privacy and the other to gather personal information-proved a challenge, officials said.

"The biggest hurdle was the months of negotiations it took to get the agreement," said Homeland Security Deputy Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, who helped negotiate the agreement in Paris. "Part of the problem they had was the perception that we don't have stringent privacy laws in the U.S."

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration require access to airline passenger names in advance of their arrival to identify possible terrorists or criminal...