Aviation security: EU and Switzerland sign passenger data‑sharing deal

Brussels – For the European Union and Switzerland, it is a week of agreements. Following the signing of no fewer than 18 agreements, protocols, and declarations on Monday, 2 March, to relaunch the economic and energy partnership between the two countries, this morning (5 March), Brussels and Bern signed a new deal on the exchange of air passenger data. 

The sharing of so-called Passenger Name Records (PNR), in the words of European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner, “represents a decisive step towards improving the security of European and Swiss citizens”. Until now, airlines operating flights between Switzerland and the EU could share some data from their passengers’ bookings with the authorities in Bern and Brussels, but there was no mechanism in place for transmitting information relevant to the security of their respective citizens. This agreement has established such a system: “With the green light for data exchange, the EU and Switzerland will be able to find and share information that is essential for identifying terrorists, human traffickers, and members of criminal organisations, and better protecting their victims,” Beat Jans, head of the Department of Justice and Police of the Swiss Federal Council and co-signatory of the agreement alongside Brunner emphasized. In any case, the transmission of information relevant to national and European security must take into account the limits and privacy guarantees established by the 2016 EU Directive specifically on the sharing of PNR data.

 Pending official ratification by the European Parliament and the Federal Assembly, Switzerland joins the list of non-EU countries with which Brussels has signed a PNR data-sharing agreement. The EU has already signed deals with Australia and the US in 2012, with the UK in 2020, and with Canada in 2025. The protocols, already signed in October last year, are also awaiting ratification by Iceland and Norway, while in December 2025, the EU Council adopted a decision authorising the opening of negotiations with South Korea.