Schlagwort: eu-LISA

Europe’s largest police database expanded again

The Schengen Information System contains 79 million entries on persons and objects. These can now also be used by the EU agencies. A new regulation allows simple police officers to question people.

With the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union three new regulations for the Schengen Information System (SIS) have entered into force. The participating national authorities are now obliged to issue a warning for all cases involving terrorist offences. If hits are found during a query, the police agency Europol must be informed in any case. However, this regulation will not be binding until the end of 2019. Europe’s largest police database expanded again weiterlesen

New database: EU extends criminal records to third country nationals and stateless persons

Five EU biometric databases will be merged into a „Common Identity Repository“. The regulations of all systems have to be renewed. The possibilities of the authorities will be expanded.

The European Union will extend its cross-border European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) to third-country nationals and stateless persons. This was agreed by the Council and Parliament on Tuesday. The exchange of information on criminal convictions of third-country nationals is intended to help in the fight against terrorism and is part of the „European Security Agenda“. The new regulation, on which the Commission presented a proposal a year ago, still has to be formally adopted by both parties. The database will then be called ECRIS-TCN („third country nationals“). New database: EU extends criminal records to third country nationals and stateless persons weiterlesen

New EU system for fingerprint identification activated

The Schengen Information System (SIS II) now also has a system for identifying people using fingerprints. After a two-year trial period, the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) was activated in March by the European Agency for the Operational Management of Large IT Systems (eu-LISA). This centrally located „fingerprint identification system“ can be searched, for example, as part of a police check. Every new entry stored in the  database is compared with the existing dactyloscopic data. The aim is to fight not only general crime but also the abuse of identities. New EU system for fingerprint identification activated weiterlesen

Pretty complicated: The European data landscape

The Council of the European Union has published a diagram of all of information systems in the realm of justice and home affairs. This overview includes databases operated by the police, customs and agencies, as well as by Interpol. It also features the agreement between the EU and the USA on exchanging data regarding financial transactions.

A new diagram is intended to make it easier for delegations from European Union member states to get to grips with the data landscape in the area of justice and home affairs. This was against the backdrop of the High Level Expert Group on Information Systems and Interoperability launched in the summer of last year, which is tasked with the development of proposals to improve file-sharing. The group is made up of members of the Commission and the member states, as well as external “experts”.

All existing information systems are to be assessed and tested for their usefulness. Uniform formats that are developed by the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office) and the police agency Europol are envisaged. A further aim is to improve the quality of the data supplied. A problem that the authorities run up against when dealing with decentralised systems is the fact that the member states often use different software programmes. The Expert Group is working to assess the feasibility of centralising systems in such cases. Pretty complicated: The European data landscape weiterlesen

The road to a population register: EU Commission outlines roadmap for a “common repository of data”

With the statement “Data protection is all well and good, but in times of crisis like these, security takes precedence” the German Minister of the Interior called in March 2016 for a restructuring of EU databases. Major information systems, including biometric data, will be centralised on a step-by-step basis. The planned population register also affects EU citizens.

In April last year, the European Commission established a “high-level group of experts” (HLEG) to investigate „current shortcomings and knowledge gaps of information systems at Union level“. The group aims to find possible ways of improving IT systems and their interoperability. Previously, Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) called for the European Union to improve links between its data repositories. The Commission has now presented the interim report of the HLEG. The road to a population register: EU Commission outlines roadmap for a “common repository of data” weiterlesen

EU adds facial recognition capabilities to police databases

Last week, the European Commission published its proposal to recast the EURODAC Regulation, which includes plans for longer storage periods, an expansion of data categories and comparison capabilities, and mandatory fingerprinting and photographing. To date, EURODAC has been used for comparison of fingerprints.

Now the system is also to store facial images and facial recognition capabilities are to be added. There are two different search options. When checks are taking place, people’s images can be compared with available personal data to verify their identity (known as 1:1 matching). However, it is also possible to search for a face in the entire database (1:n). EU adds facial recognition capabilities to police databases weiterlesen