A Canadian airline called Air Transat gave a British passenger’s name to the American government, which resulted in him being barred from flying to England.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association is expressing concerns about why Canadian airlines were willing to give passenger information to the U.S. when they are not legally obligated to do so. A bill going into third reading in Ottawa is calling for airlines to be exempt from Canada’s privacy laws, which will enable the companies to send the information to counter-terrorism officials in the U.S. and other countries. “Bill C42 hasn’t yet passed, but it seems aircraft carriers may be acting as if Bill C42 is already law,” the group said.

He went to the media for help. Lucky for him the British embassy stepped in and he was cleared of suspicion — allowed by the US to fly from Toronto to a destination in England. The Edmonton Journal says if he had made the appeal on his own to the US he could have been left stranded in their bureaucracy for months despite being on Canadian soil.