Vilnius, 19/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx, delivered a very negative opinion on Friday 19 July on the new Commission proposal for a “smart border” system.
Hustinx considers Commissioner Cecilia Malmström's initiative is costly, intrusive and unwarranted. He said: “There is no clear evidence that the Commission proposals to create a smart border system for the external borders of the EU will fulfil the aims that it has set out”.
On 28 February this year, the Commission presented a package of measures to accelerate, simplify and strengthen the border control procedures for foreigners entering the Union, including a registered traveller programme (RTP) and an entry/exit system (EES), based on the use of biometric data to verify the identity of individuals. The aim of this is to make life simpler for frequent travellers from third countries by controlling irregular travellers more closely. “Improving the management of border controls is a legitimate exercise. But it would be more effective to do this once a clear European policy on the management of over-stayers (Ed: those who have exceeded the duration of their right to stay) has been established”, said Hustinx, adding: “In the absence of such a policy, the creation of yet another large-scale IT database to store massive amounts of personal information is a disproportionate response to a problem that other recently-created systems may be able to help solve”. For the EES, “two or four fingerprints are sufficient for verification”, compared to ten fingerprints required, said the EDPS. Also, as law enforcement authorities may potentially be granted access to the database after a period of evaluation of the system coming into force, it appears that the proposals are anticipating such access before demonstrating that the intrusion into the private lives of individuals is actually necessary, the EDPS states. “The general trend to give law enforcement authorities access to the data of individuals, who in principle are not suspected of committing any crime, is a dangerous one”, he asserted, underlining that specific attention also needs to be paid to the legal consequences of automating border procedures. The Parliament has already expressed criticism, saying it is important to assess the costs of these new provisions and not to duplicate existing instruments such as the SIS 2, for example, the second generation Schengen Information System that took years to develop and cost more than originally planned. (SP/transl.jl)