The EU wants to collect and store air passenger data in a move that officials say will help fight against terrorism.<br /><br /> The bloc’s interior ministers met in Riga on Thursday in the wake of the Paris attacks earlier this month.<br /><br /> Thomas de Maizière, German interior minister said, that Berlin wants to tighten controls on the EU’s external borders.<br /><br /> “We also want to improve the exchange of information via Europol and we are really pressing for the implementation of the Passenger Name Record agreement.”<br /><br /> But the so-called PNR proposal has drawn criticism from civil liberties campaigners, who claim it goes too far in invading individual privacy.<br /><br /> Centre-left groups in the European Parliament voted down a proposed law in 2013, but the Charlie Hebdo attacks have seen EU officials quickly seeking to revive it.<br /><br /> Having police help social media networks track down and uncover potential terror groups is another idea, according to the EU’s anti-terrorism czar Gilles de Kerchove.<br /><br /> “The company
