The number of pieces of information exchanged via the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) reached 4.2 million in 2019, with an average of 348,000 messages per month, according to a new statistical report published by the European Commission on Monday 21 December.
Indeed, the report notes a surge in requests for information since 2017, reaching 1 million in 2019 alone. This increase is mainly due to the fact that ECRIS is no longer used exclusively for criminal proceedings but also for other purposes, for example for pre-employment checks, in the Commission’s view.
It should be noted that the volume of applications sent nevertheless varies considerably between Member States, ranging from 745,000 applications per year in Germany to 6 applications per year in Greece.
After 8 years of operation, all 28 Member States are now connected to ECRIS. However, to date only Spain is exchanging information with all of the other 27 Member States. On average, each Member State has 24 active connections with other Member States.
However, the report reveals that some countries still are not fulfilling all the obligations surrounding the use of the system, in particular as regards the notification of new convictions. In some years, several Member States (Portugal, Malta, Estonia, Greece) have not sent notifications of new convictions at all, the report notes.
In 2019, 190,000 requests were not answered within the legal deadlines, i.e. 18.4% of the total number of requests. In the same year, more than 42,000 requests for information went unanswered. The highest number of unanswered requests was found in Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Greece.
The report also notes that ECRIS is still rarely used to search for information on criminal records of non-Member State nationals (see EUROPE 12157/11). On average, 92% of all applications concern EU nationals and around 8% concern non-Member State nationals and stateless persons.
See the report: https://bit.ly/3ppvz6H (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)