Passenger data to be forwarded to the police
Starting this year, airlines will automatically forward booking information to the Police and Border Guard Board, where it will be processed by the analytics department of the Central Criminal Police.
Apart from the Central Criminal Police, other authorities that will have access to the data are the Security Police, the Tax and Customs Board, and the Defense Ministry’s Information Board. The data forwarded includes the name of the passenger, their destination, where and when the ticket was bought, and the means of payment, Eesti Päevaleht reported.
Erkki Koort, Deputy Secretary General at the Ministry of the Interior, said that the system was currently in its testing phase, but that they expected it to be fully implemented within the first half of the year.
The airlines have been gathering this kind information for years, the main change is that now they will forward it directly.
The analysis of passenger and booking information is used to support the investigation of crimes, to work against organized crime, and to prevent terrorist attacks. Suspects show certain patterns of movement and activity, and following these, they can be identified and tracked.
An example of the work of such a system is the arrest of Faisal Shahzad in New York in 2010, who had attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square.
Editor: Dario Cavegn