PNR EU-Canada, Opinion, A1/15, CJEU (Grand Chamber), 26 July 2017

Exchange of PNR data between the European Union and Canada. International agreement. Request for an opinion to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Court prevents the agreement from entering into force. Violation of arts. 7 and 8 CFREU read in the light of art. 52 CFREU. 

Art. 7 EUCFR
Art. 8 EUCFR
Art. 52 EUCFR

The Court of Justice of the European Union was called, pursuant to art. 218 TFEU, to determine whether the draft agreement for the exchange of PNR data between the European Union and Canada was compatible with arts. 7 and 8 CFREU read in the light of art. 52 CFREU. The Court prevented the agreement from entering into force, finding that some of its provisions violate the abovementioned guarantees. Among others, the Court highlighted that, although sensitive data is formally excluded from the scope of application of the draft agreement, by crossing some non-sensitive data it is possible to get information about religious, philosophical, political or ethnic features, thus giving rise to a risk of discrimination. 

In this Opinion, the Court of Justice of the European Union builds on its previous case law regarding privacy and data protection, on the one hand, and public security, on the other hand, developing some of its findings.