Making the best of connected information on migration and crime

The European Parliament has given the final green light to two pieces of legislation connecting seven information systems used by law enforcement and border guards. By connecting bits and pieces already stored in all these databases, criminals will find it more difficult to escape justice, and those who are in the EU illegally will not hide easily.

Jeroen Lenaers MEP, the Rapporteur for the interoperability of borders and visa information systems, said: “With this legislation, we are taking a big and important step towards closing blind spots in our EU security policy. Border guards, customs authorities, police officers and judicial authorities will have fast and full access to the information that they need in order to do their job well. We are making sure that the right information arrives at the right person at the right time and we are preventing that the same person is stored in EU systems under different identities.”

Nuno Melo MEP, the Rapporteur on the legislation on the interoperability of police, judicial, asylum and migration information systems, added: “We are not changing our security systems, we are improving their architecture so criminals cannot escape the net these databases create. Thanks to police and prosecutors using a single search portal to find missing information and a biometric matching service to scan the databases with, for example, fingerprints, terrorists will not be able to enter the EU with one identity and attempt to leave with another fraudulent one.”

The two new sets of legal rules connect the Schengen Information System, Eurodac, the Visa Information System, the Entry-Exit System, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), the European Criminal Records Information System for third-country nationals (ECRIS-TCN system) and Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database.