SECURITY
DATA
Travellers ‘at risk’
without EU passenger data grab
Fingerprints for India visas
UK TRAVELLERS VISITING INDIA will soon have to provide fingerprint data to obtain a visa. Starting on 14 March, travellers will have to make appointments at application centres for “biometric data collection”, where fingerprint data and facial imagery will be a
AIRPORTS
Stansted targets long-haul services with £260m investment
STANSTED IS TO TARGET MORE LONG-HAUL SERVICES as part of its £260 million investment programme. It said the funding is needed to attract more passengers, airlines and long-haul flights to the airport. It comes as Stansted’s managing director Andrew Harrison unveiled the next stage of the programme – an £8 million upgrade of its Satellite One departure gate area. Stansted said the investment will provide “enhanced passenger facilities” including
new seating, refurbished toilets, free charging points and improved wifi. AIRLINES
Air France-KLM steps up cost cutting as strike hits profits
AIR FRANCE-KLM IS ACCELERATING COST-CUTTING MEASURES and reducing investments after it announced a drop in profits caused by 2014’s 14-day pilots’ strike. The action over plans to expand the group’s low-cost subsidiary Transavia cost the airline around Ð425 million.
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
The strike action, which was the longest in 20 years, offset the benefits of lower fuel costs. The airline
said it was cutting investment by Ð600 million over two years and making 800 job cuts, as well as speeding up its cost-cutting targets.
“mandatory requirement” for all visa applicants. The High Commission of India states on its website that, after outsourcing the process to a company called VFS, all applicants will need to be physically present at India Visa and Consular Services centres to submit an
application and biometric data. Application centres that will allow travellers to submit biometric testing for visas will open across the UK in March. They will be introduced in cities including London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bristol.
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S PLANS to store all air passenger data for up to five years does “breach personal privacy” but is needed to keep travellers safe, according to Susan Hopley, who runs data financing firm The Data Exchange, told Buying Business Travel that any move to make travel safer should be welcomed. “Notions of privacy have changed. Many people want others to know about their personal lives in great detail. This is a trend. Having such counter-terror measures does breach personal privacy, but that is the point,” said Hopley. “The issue is how this data is protected and who has access to it, and what value or danger would result from it being accessed and hacked by the wrong people.” The European Commission has outlined plans that would enable police and security services to store 42 separate pieces of information, including bank card details, home address and meal preferences. The Commission’s proposal describes itself as a “workable compromise” between European interior ministers – who want the plan adopted for all flights within Europe as well as international flights – and the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee, which has previously vetoed the plan. Hopley said travellers must be made
aware by their employer about any changes to privacy laws and warned their “patterns of travel could well be compromised if the data fell into the wrong hands. A great deal of this information is already out there in less secure data systems.” She added: “I think businesses need to make their employees more aware of what is happening to their data on so many levels. Data is a marketable commodity.”
BBT MARCH/APRIL 2015 9
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