Brussels, 25/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Danish Presidency is proposing that the EU adopt a decision to allow the electronic exchange of information between Member States' law enforcement agencies. Denmark wants criminal records, fingerprints and DNA profiles to be sent by e-mail, with a 24 hour response deadline. Each Member State would designate a contact point responsible for coordinating information exchange. In the long-term, the Presidency argues that the EU could consider common databases but given that this would give rise to many legal concerns, its says the "same objectives can be met immediately through less far-reaching means". A working group is already preparing a draft Council decision.
Denmark argues in support of its idea that electronic data exchange systems already exist under the Schengen, Europol and Interpol Agreements and suggests that the Council choose one of these existing systems. The 179 Interpol members use the X400 e-mail system to send encrypted messages of various types (text, images, photos, etc) via their National Central Bureaus linked up with the Central Station at the General Secretariat of Interpol in Lyons (France). They could use this system to search for individuals via parameter such as ID documents, fingerprints or false names. The system is supplemented by an automatic fingerprint matching system used by all EU Member States (called AFIS). The Schengen Information System links up EU Member States and with information on missing persons, people who are being sought, stolen goods and false documents. It can only be used to exchange text or digits, unlike EIS (the "Europol Information System") which can also be used for images (fingerprints and photos). EIS consists of several servers at Europol headquarters connected to the National Units, which can be accessed by the National Units, the Europol Director and other empowered officials. In its proposal to amend Europol's functioning, Denmark is proposing to extend access to EIS to the managers of the Member States' police forces (see Europe of 6 July, p.8).