The European Parliament committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs, today backed new EU wide rules on interoperability. This involves the ability of information systems to exchange data and enable sharing of information between relevant national authorities.

S&D Group spokespeople for the interoperability file Péter Niedermüller and Miriam Dalli said:

“For years, it has been clear that we need a more coordinated approach to sharing information between different EU information systems. Recent investigations into terrorist attacks in Europe have highlighted that important information was available but unfortunately not to the people who needed it most. These new rules will help to address a lot of the problems with the current system and will make it easier for officials such as police offices, border guards or migration officers to access the information that they need to do their jobs.

“We have fought to ensure that these new rules help create a more joined up approach across the EU, while protecting personal data and fundamental rights. We ensured that provisions were included to make it easier to correct false information in databases and to include penalties and liabilities for errors. This is essential, as databases are only useful if the information in them is accurate and correct.

“Even though our position was in favour of not having a new common identity repository of non-EU citizens, we will still work constructively with the European Council and Commission to finalise these important proposals.  We do not believe that we need new databases or to collect more information but instead to better connect what already exists. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that fundamental rights are protected in all cases.”