Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 2 September 2014 to Question 207060, and with reference to Article 37(4) of Council Decision 2007/533/JHA, on what grounds the Government has made no distinction between discreet checks and specific checks under Council Decision 2007/533/JHA.

Council Decision 2007/533/JHA is legislative basis for governing the second generation of the Schengen Information System (SIS II) for the purposes of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.

The communication of relevant data to the issuing State under Article 37(3) will take place on the basis of centralised electronic forms. In the UK that will be coordinated by the National Crime Agency and will have a minimal impact on operational resources.

The Government makes no distinction between discreet checks and specific checks under Article 37(4) because, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, UK authorities can only treat these alerts as discreet. However, if there has been a domestic offence committed, or the person is of interest to UK national security agencies, then the person would be dealt with under national legislation.

Article 38 provides that Member States shall enter data onto SISII on objects sought for seizure or use as evidence in criminal proceedings. For the UK, SISII will be integrated into the Police National Computer (PNC) infrastructure and will allow officers easy access to create and check lost and stolen objects subject to SISII alerts. Article 39 provides that when a SISII search identifies a "hit" i.e. the database shows that the object has been located, the relevant authority should be contacted in order to agree on next steps.
This will be coordinated by the NCA.