In a new audit published on Monday 11 November, the European Court of Auditors found that the European information systems used for border controls in the Schengen area, such as the Schengen Information System, the Visa Information System, the European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur) and the passenger data directive (PNR), were “well designed, but the data they contain should be more current and complete”.
According to the Court, border control authorities in the Member States should “do more to ensure that complete data are quickly entered into EU information systems”.
The auditors went to Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland. “In general, Schengen information systems are well designed to facilitate border controls, and the Member States visited generally comply with the legal requirements in this area”, but Member States could use “information systems more systematically. More than half of the border guards surveyed” have also, “at one time or another, allowed people to cross the border without first consulting the systems”.
In particular, the auditors noted a difference between the number of Schengen visas issued and the number of visas checked, which could mean that they are not systematically checked at all checkpoints. Border guards do not always receive complete and timely data from the systems. “When they check a name, they can get hundreds of results (most often ‘false positives’), which they have to check manually”, the report adds.
The budget spent by the EU on setting up information systems to facilitate the work of border guards is over €600 million, but Member States “have made only limited use of available EU funds to improve the information systems used”.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2O4jq5P (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)