The EU Is Ready to Open Its Biometric Databases to the US for Visa-Free Travel

The European digital rights network EDRi is sounding the alarm: the European Commission is finalizing negotiations with the US administration on a framework agreement for an “Enhanced Border Security Partnership” (EBSP). The document is meant to let border services check travelers against biometric databases and build profiles of them “for security threats.”

The condition for keeping visa-free travel

Back in 2022, Washington announced that access to countries' biometric databases would become a mandatory condition for keeping their citizens' visa-free entry into the US — and this applies to EU states as well. The EBSP scheme envisions the automated exchange of personal data to vet and identify travelers.

The European Commission began discussing the matter with the US as early as 2022, but only received an official mandate from the EU Council to negotiate on behalf of member states in December 2025. The goal is to conclude a “framework agreement” setting out the rules for information exchange and data processing, on the basis of which individual countries would then sign bilateral treaties with the US.

“This is nothing short of blackmail”

EDRi calls the US demands outright blackmail. The scheme entails systematically handing over to the US government biometric data and subjective “risk indicators” drawn from European national databases. In the rights advocates' view, the draft offers no protection against discrimination based on political beliefs — and the US already practices screening travelers' social media profiles. Speech in support of transgender rights or protests against events in Gaza could come under fire, the organization warns, even leading to detention at the border.

The negotiations are being conducted in secrecy. In May 2026, however, Statewatch, an EDRi member organization, published a leaked “revised version” of the draft. According to EDRi's analysis, the text almost entirely reflects the US demands for unrestricted access to information.

From this, the rights advocates identify two key flaws: the document departs substantially from the member states' negotiating mandate and in many respects fails to conform to EU primary and secondary law, above all the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In particular, it does not ensure an “essentially equivalent” level of protection in international data transfers — which is precisely what the case law of the EU Court of Justice requires; that court, in EDRi's view, would almost certainly find the agreement incompatible with Union law.

A call to resist the pressure

EDRi urges the European Commission and the EU Council to push back and not sell people's personal data to a country with a troubling record of human rights violations. A strong Europe, the organization argues, needs a strong set of rules, and lawmakers should be strengthening protections against data exploitation rather than yielding to pressure from Washington.

Source: Hacker News