Brussels, 16/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission adopted on Wednesday a very general communication on access by Member State law enforcement authorities to data available in other Member States. In the communication, it announces that two proposals expected for June will be deferred till July: - a framework proposal for exchange of information between law enforcement authorities on individuals; and a proposal on the transmission to authorities of information on air passengers travelling to the European Union, from the EU or in transit. The European Council of 25 and 26 March had in its conclusions on terrorism after the Madrid attacks entrusted the European Commission with submitting these long awaited proposals to it by June.
Wednesday's document suggests that Member States should improve access to their information and data for law enforcement services of the other Member States by establishing the principle of "equivalent access". The communication speaks of establishing transparent and simple conditions and announces the Commission's intention to launch an assessment exercise end 2004 in order to assess the scale, the needs and the constraints on access to data and databases by the authorities responsible for law enforcement. As all Member States have different systems, the Commission states it plans to launch studies to support the development of legislative and non-legislative initiatives on minimum norms for -data collection, common procedural norms for classifying data confidentiality and reliability, common norms on authorising access to classified information and user access profiles. The communication also mentions a strengthened role for Europol.