Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/916779
maltatoday SUNDAY 17 DECEMBER 2017 26 Air Malta pilots will be deciding by se- cret ballot between Thursday and Friday whether they will scale up industrial actions with a suspension of service. In its most vociferous threat to Air Malta management so far, the Airline Pilots Association's (ALPA) president James Fenech said 55 pilots present for an extraordinary general meeting yes- terday were unanimously backing strike action. "Since we cannot take a proper vote during an EGM, because other pilots are flying, we will open a 24 hour ballot between Thursday and Friday," Captain James Fenech told MaltaToday yesterday. The vote will be open to ALPA's 135 pilots. Unless Air Malta resume negotiations over denied vacation leave, pilots may opt for either a full or limited suspen- sion of service affecting specific times of service. James Fenech said the airline wants to give each pilot just an average of 19 days vacation leave, but ALPA are demand- ing their statutory 24 days apart from any unclaimed vacation leave which will carry over into the new year. "Our members are saying 'enough'. We see Air Malta in its present situation and we have seen our contribution to the airline, and we want Air Malta to resolve this situation," Fenech said. ALPA has claimed pilots have not been able to take all their leave for the past two years. Although legally only 12 days may be carried over to next year, quite a few will be ending 2007 with around 40 days leave pending. In a statement last Saturday, ALPA Said this situation placed Air Malta in an awkward position since it would be forced to grant the pending vacation leave to pilots during the next three months. "This leads to the question of who will be flying Air Malta's aircraft early next year," the association said. The ALPA president also said members yesterday said their vote on strike action should not only be tied to the issue of vacation leave, but also on other pending issues concerning the suspended collec- tive agreement and other matters related to Air Malta's wet lease to the fledgling airline Etihad, based in the United Arab Emirates. "Our members are adamant to tie this action to the unresolved collec- tive agreement and Etihad, where up to this day the airline has not yet finalised any work conditions," Fenech said. "We had asked that Air Malta pilots flying Etihad should be given an extra day of company time as a rest period, apart from their two days off each week and the full contractual rest period for pilots, since they are flying to new destinations such as Delhi, which require their 100% attention. "Despite our requests, Air Malta steamed ahead with the Etihad wet lease – we never stopped this project, because we felt it was good for Air Malta, but still it ignored our requests," Fenech said. Air Malta's pilots are requesting a collective agreement that will increase their salaries substantially after accept- ing a three-year rescue plan back in 2004 which included salary cuts for pilots and cabin crew. Captains were paying back Lm100 every month to the national airline from their salaries, for the past three years. They are now demanding industry standard salaries, which could double Air Malta's wage bill for pilots. Since discussions over the collective agreement started eight months ago, ALPA has refused four proposals by Air Malta to increase salaries, the latest offer being an increase of 21-27 per cent over the next two years. On 1 August, Air Malta pilots should have had a collective agreement in place. But the agreement has since been at a deadlock. It is believed the airline has lost over 30 Maltese pilots already. Pilots are also demanding a structured rostering pattern. Pilots are normally not schedule for more than four consecutive flights without having a day off before taking up another flight. Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. News – 19 December 2007 Pilots' strike imminent unless Air Malta resumes discussions Opinion Safe City operation The article 'Paceville is test case for facial recognition CCTV that could be deployed nationwide' (MaltaToday, 3 December 2017) has generated healthy debate on matters related to privacy, human rights and civil liberties and I would like to make a few clarifica- tions on the matter. Technological innovation ac- celerates social and economic pro- gress to improve the quality of life, but can also weaken or interfere with the citizens' right to privacy and freedom if used inappropri- ately. That is the reason why the EU and the Member States' laws and regulations go to a significant extent to put safeguards against potential abuse, and that at a European level the right to privacy is considered a human right. The article has generated un- necessary concern because one could easily arrive at the wrong conclusions based on what was said and written. It also prompted the IDPC to contact me to seek more information on what was reported. The full context and an explanation was given to the IDPC and other interested parties. A clear distinction needs to be made between technology and capabilities, and operational objectives. State-of-the-art com- munications and video surveil- lance technology can be used to put in practice scenarios as were reported in the article. Indeed, it is technically possible nowadays to operationalise systematic mass video surveillance and deploy wide-scale biometric facial recognition, and equip a van as a mobile control centre for policing purposes as was explained in the article. For a proof-of-concept public CCTV operation to be put into practice, a stakeholder or stake- holders that will take the respon- sibility of carrying out video surveillance needs to be roped in to the project. The company that has been set up (Safe City Malta Ltd) is meant to act as a technol- ogy enabler, in collaboration with Huawei, and will not carry out video surveillance itself. Once a stakeholder is formally on-board the project, the scope and requirements of the surveil- lance operation will need to be defined. Such an entity, acting as a Data Controller, is obliged to carry out a Privacy Impact Assessment, especially since public CCTV sur- veillance falls under the category of high-risk data because of lack of consent from data subjects and the potential mass accumulation of data. This would be done with the full support and involvement of the Data Processor, which in this case would be the company that has been set up. Under EU General Data Pro- tection Regulations, the Data Processor also has significant obligations at law which must be satisfied before any data process- ing operation can commence. The assessment must also prove that processing of personal data is consistent with Data Protec- tion by Design and by Default. The planned implementation and operation must satisfy all legal requirements, and ensure that before any data processing of personal data begins, even on a proof-of-concept basis, the final solution design according to the approved requirements of the planned operation must tick all the boxes from a data protec- tion and privacy standpoint. The nature of this project will also mandate careful consideration of Human Rights and must satisfy a test of acceptability. The amount of interference to the right of privacy must have legal justifica- tions, must be proportionate to the target end objective, and only go as far as is required to obtain such results. It is planned that in the coming months the building blocks, in terms of hardware and soft- ware, are commissioned such that technical training at an engineering level can follow without undue delay. This will also enable academic projects to move forward as the platform provides many opportunities for such work in many areas related to radio telecoms, private cloud and enterprise networking in- frastructure, as well as advanced video technology. Commis- sioning of such infrastructure will not involve any cameras in Paceville or any public surveil- lance operation. The process described above in terms of getting the green light for a surveillance operation will kickstart once stakeholders who would carry such video surveil- lance on a proof-of-concept basis in a locality such as Paceville or other approved location are engaged. That approval process might require certain solution design changes along the way, as no operation will start unless all legal requirements are met. Even from an academic research or experimental software devel- opment perspective, all proposed projects need to be in line with applicable research commit- tees' policies of the institutions involved, and must fulfil all data protection guidelines and regula- tions. Malta is a technologically advanced nation. This project is a key opportunity for Malta to showcase how state-of-the-art video surveillance can be put to good use while fully meeting privacy regulations and respect- ing human rights. Joseph Cuschieri Director, Safe City Malta Is it murder or an assassination? How to refer to Daphne's grue- some end? Was it murder or assassina- tion? An assassin kills, or is contracted to kill, out of a political motive. That is the meaning assassin has evolved to. The word is of Arabic origin, referring to an extremist sect of Muslims whose members were sent out by their Grand Master from his fortification in Iran to kill leaders of the Sunni. During the Crusades, they went after Christians with equal gusto. At the time it meant funda- mentalist, a term which one might suppose has now come full circle. So what began as a murder driven by religious faith, has now come to mean one driven by political credo. For sometimes a blurred, if not overlapping, thin line divides the two. Joe Genovese Birkirkara Virgin birth of the Christ The Christian belief in the virgin birth of Jesus is derived from primitive myths about the virgin birth of gods and national heroes. Mercury was born of the virgin Maia; Attis of the virgin Nana; Horus of the virgin Isis; and Romulus of the virgin Rhea Sylvia. In his book God is not great, Christopher Hitchens observed that Jesus made "large claims for his heavenly father but he never claimed virgin birth. Mary her- self appears to have no memory of the Archangel Gabriel's visita- tion." Thomas Jefferson predicted that "the day will come when the mys- tical generation of Jesus in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." John Guillaumier St Julian's