EU: SIS II in crisis: SIS I reloaded? by Eric Töpfer
01 January 2009
The planned shift from SIS I to SIS II has been delayed by lack of “stability” and “flaws” in the new system and MEPs are not amused to learn about the problem through the press
When Jacques Barrot the European Commission’s vice-president, and as Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security the person in charge of the development of the central unit of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II), admitted on 11 March 2009 during the European Parliament’s debate on the state of play of SIS II, that the project had “not met the contractual requirements”, MEPs complained about not having been informed earlier. They said that they had learned about the problems through media reports. (1)
On 18 December 2008 the Commission informed the Article 36 Committee (CATS) that significant problems had become apparent when the central system (C.SIS II) was tested under operational conditions by a limited number of Member States in November and December. One particular problem was the data consistency between the central unit and the national systems (N.SIS II) but also the overall performance and stability of the system did not meet up to expectations. Whether these problems are of a technical or political nature is contested. At the 12th European Police Congress held in February in Berlin, a representative from Mummert Steria, which delivers key components for the C.SIS II, insisted that the central unit was running faultlessly. (2)
Whatever the nature of the problems, they became public for the first time at the informal Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on 15/16 January 2009 in Prague. Commissioner Barrot was sharply criticised by ministers from the Member States when he reported that it is no longer realistic to complete the transfer from the current SIS 1+ to SIS II in September 2009. With the Commission having allegedly invested more than 70 million Euro in the new system, (3) the Czech presidency took the initiative - “business as usual is not an option” - and drafted a crisis plan which was transformed into a formal conclusion at the JHA Council meeting on 26/27 February in Brussels. (4) Its conclusion reaffirms “that the rapid entry into operation of SIS II remains the absolute priority”.
A “root cause analysis” will locate fundamental flaws and guide the formulation of a “repair action plan” which should be in place by May at the latest. Parallel to these efforts an alternative scenario will be examined which would see the upgrading of the current SIS to make it fit for the accession of the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and the non-EU Member State, Liechtenstein. Moreover, the feasibility of integrating biometric data (as planned for SIS II) into the old system should be studied as well as the costs and effects that such an alternative approach would have for the implementation of the Visa Information System (VIS) and the N.SIS II that are already in operation. To improve the coordination between the SIS II Task Force and the Member States, a “global programme management” has been put in place aiming to draw key national experts to Strasbourg. Based on the progress over the next few months the JHA Council Meeting on 4/5 June is expected to make a final decision on the future of SIS II.
90% of SIS entries made by France and Italy
Meanwhile the old SIS is still busy, with the Slovenian EU presidency claiming in late 2008 that it was “the most effective tool in international police cooperation”. (5) With nearly 930,000 entries on individuals and more than 26 million entries on objects and vehicles it has reached a new peak (see table below). Interestingly, input into the SIS is still very uneven: Italy alone is responsible for one third of the total entries, and only two Member States (which are unnamed in the recent statistical analysis but are likely to be Italy and France given the 2007 Schengen Joint Supervisory Authority’s report on the Article 99 inspection) provide 90 per cent of the entries
Over the last eight years the number of data entries has tripled which is partly due to the accession of new Member States to the SIS. (7) Thus, the number of entry alerts for objects and vehicles shows an increase of around 10 million items of data after the Schengen area was expanded to nine Member States in September 2007. Alerts for the purpose of refusing entry dropped by more than 50,000 in 2008 as entries on EU citizens had to be deleted. However, this number has now almost reached the 2007 level once again.
Ironically, it seems that increased data entries and the rise in “hits”, which increased by 60 per cent in 2008 compared to the previous year, is becoming a problem for the SIRENE offices in countries where staff have not increased significantly. The 652 SIRENE officers in the then 24 Schengen area countries had to digest 122,115 hits in 2008. In Germany with its 66 SIRENE officers at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), for example, the number of “hits” increased from 14,508 in 2007 to 19,264 hits in 2008. (8) Thus, a recent report of the SIS II Task Force identified (alongside budget and contractual difficulties) “serious problems in resources” in nine Member States as the main risk for their participation in SIS II. (9) Hence, the migration from the old to the new systems is likely to be the next bottleneck in SIS II implementation even if the technical problems are solved.
With the prospect of more data categories (including ships, containers and airplanes) being entered onto the new system the rebirth of the pan-European police computer system will remain at the top of the European justice and home affairs agenda for some time to come.
Sources
1. European Parliament, CRE 11/03/2009 – 11.
2. heise online, 10.2.09.
3. heise online, 17.1.09
4. EU Council doc. 6067/09, 3.2.09 and EU Council doc. 6896/09, 25.2.09.
5. EU Council doc. 15934/08, 18.11.08.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. EU Council doc. 5171/09, 19.2.09.
9. EU Council doc. 7789/09, 19.3.09.
Table of SIS I data for 2006-2009 only available in printed/pdf format