Passenger travel data shared with Iceland to fight terrorism and serious crime

European Parliament approves EU‑Iceland data‑sharing agreement

• The Parliament formally agrees to a new agreement between the EU and Iceland.
• The agreement allows Iceland to receive and share passenger name record (PNR) data—details of people who travel by air—with EU authorities.
• The purpose is to help prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorism and other serious crimes.

Key points of the resolution

• The Parliament gives its consent for the EU to conclude the agreement with Iceland.
• The Parliament’s President is instructed to send this decision to:
• the European Council
• the European Commission
• the governments and parliaments of all EU member states
• Iceland.

Broader context

Passenger Name Record (PNR) data is the information you provide when booking a flight — your name, travel dates, itinerary, contact details, seat number, baggage info, and similar booking details. Airlines collect this automatically, and governments can request access to it for security purposes.

The EU has been building a network of such data-sharing agreements with countries it works closely with on security. Similar agreements are already in place with the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. An agreement with Canada is pending ratification, and negotiations with Switzerland are ongoing. The Iceland agreement is part of this same broader effort.

Iceland is not an EU member state, but it is part of the Schengen Area — the passport-free travel zone. Norway and Iceland are members of the Schengen area alongside 25 EU Member States, as well as Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Because of this close relationship, the EU and Iceland cooperate extensively on security matters, but until now there was no proper legal basis for sharing PNR data between them.

Iceland previously could not lawfully receive and process PNR data on flights between the EU and Iceland due to the absence of appropriate safeguards and a valid legal basis as required by EU law. This agreement fixes that gap.

Impact on people living in the EU

For most travellers, nothing changes visibly. You still book flights the same way and go through the same airport procedures. What changes is what happens to your booking data behind the scenes.

The agreements prohibit the processing of sensitive data, define retention periods, and include safeguards against misuse or unauthorised access. The European Data Protection Supervisor — the EU's independent data watchdog — issued a positive opinion concluding that the agreement contains the necessary safeguards required for it to be compatible with the EU legal framework on data protection.

Key protections written into the agreement include:

Impact on people living in Iceland

For Icelanders flying to EU countries, and for EU citizens flying to Iceland, their booking data can now formally flow to Icelandic security authorities. This information can help authorities detect suspicious travel patterns and identify associates of criminals and terrorists — in particular those previously unknown to law enforcement.

Iceland gains the same tools EU member states already use to screen passengers on routes crossing into the Schengen Area's external borders. In practical terms, Icelandic authorities will have a Passenger Information Unit (PIU) — a designated authority responsible for processing PNR data — which will handle all data received under the agreement.