Schengen Agreement: ICT

(asked on 13th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to request access to the Schengen Information System SIS II.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 20th January 2021

The UK has secured an agreement with the EU delivering a comprehensive package of capabilities relating to law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation. This will ensure we can continue to work with counterparts across Europe to tackle serious crime and terrorism - helping to protect the public and bring criminals to justice.

Sadly the EU took the position throughout the negotiations that it was legally impossible for any third country outside the Schengen area to continue cooperating through SIS II. We have therefore returned to tried and tested mechanisms of cooperation via Interpol and bilateral channels, which we already use with the rest of the world – and which we used with EU Member States until 2015. All incoming Interpol circulations (notices and diffusions) are available at the front line via UK border and policing systems. In addition to over 150,000 Interpol nominal circulations, the UK has direct access to 90 million suspect document records.

Our assessment is the UK was a safe country before joining SIS II in 2015 and we will continue to be one of the safest countries in the world, with border security set to be enhanced by our decision to end the use of EEA National ID Cards at the UK Border later this year.

The Government is investing in longer-term technical capabilities to support law enforcement data sharing by developing a single technical mechanism for law enforcement agencies to access and share alerts related to people, documents and objects with international partners on a reciprocal basis. The programme is at an early stage of development.

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