May pushes for expansion of the Passenger Name Records scheme

Over at The Guardian, Alan Travis has written a piece about the Home Secretary's attempts to push European leaders into adopt a scheme designed to collect even more details from passengers travelling in and out of the European Union. 

While some information is already shared between EU member states and the United States, Theresa May's proposal would see information on travellers' movements logged for up to six months and then stored in an anonymised form for up to five years.

It's deeply regrettable that the Home Secretary wishes to adopt such an invasive and illberal policy. 

The Passenger Name Records scheme would represent a significant threat to the personal privacy of travellers.  While a limited amount of information is already shared among EU member state, Theresa May's PRN proposal would see personal data retained for up to six years. The state has no reason – and no right – to track people’s movements in this way, let alone to log their credit card details and the identities of their travel companions.

A government elected on a promise to scale back the database state should be an opponent of this type of policy, not its biggest cheerleader.