Today, the Cabinet of Ministers supported the draft law “Amendments to the Aircraft Passenger Data Processing Law”.
Amendments to the draft law have been made for two purposes. Firstly, the amendments stipulate that air passenger data included in the Air Passenger Name Record will also be available from the Air Passenger Name Record to The Centre For Disease Prevention And Control Of Latvia (CDPC) in order to reduce the spread of a notifiable communicable disease to public health. The expected competence of the CDPC is not only for the control of Covid-19, but also for the prevention of the spread of other notifiable communicable diseases that pose an epidemiological inquiry to public health.
Consequently, the draft law also envisages setting specific criteria according to which these aircraft passenger data will be able to be obtained and other processing activities within the competence determined by the CDPC.
The second purpose of the draft law is to determine the cases in which the competent investigative and national security authorities are entitled to receive data included or to be included in the Aircraft Passenger Name Record without the consent of a judge. For example, in cases where there is already a previously identified, substantiated involvement of the person concerned in terrorism, the commission, preparation or attempt to commit a serious crime, or a threat to national security. In these cases, too, the draft law sets out specific criteria for receiving a certain amount of aircraft passenger data.
In order to achieve both of these objectives, it is not planned to include additional data on aircraft passengers in the Aircraft Passenger Name Record. At the same time, the amount of data processed includes the minimum information necessary to achieve the stated purposes, and the criteria for receiving the data are very strict to ensure a reasonable balance between the achievement of those purposes and the protection of the privacy of air passengers.
Prepared:
Ministry of the Interior
Communication department