EU's data privacy laws stymie India's investigation into airline bomb hoax calls

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: India’s hunt for the perpetrators of multiple bombing threats that significantly disrupted the domestic aviation and hospitality sectors has hit a roadblock in Europe, where most of the hoax calls are said to have been made through virtual private networks.

The Centre has been denied access to personal information trails in Europe, with the authorities citing the region’s stringent personal data regulations and their requirements, three senior government and industry officials told Mint on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “India has currently hit a roadblock in the European Union, with France and Germany being among the nations that have cited clauses under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Act," one official said.

“The reasoning offered to India is that the EU would need specific warrants pointing at perpetrators for the EU to enable pursuit of the investigation further. But in the case of this investigation, it’s difficult to point at one particular perpetrator—and this has led India's investigation of those suspected to be behind the bomb hoaxes to a standstill." Over the past month, airlines and hotels across India received over 500 calls delivering bomb threats, although each of them turned out to be a hoax.

Modern-day hoax and scam callers use the internet, and virtual private networks help hide their location. For hoax calls traced to a foreign country, India will have to request its government to cooperate or follow legal procedures there.

India remains in talks with officials from France, Germany and other European nations to identify the sources of these calls, a second official added. “The general intention from Europe is