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EU: The Schengen Information System (SIS) has "over half a million terminals located in the security services of the Member States"

01 January 2010

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The Schengen Information System (SIS) has "over half a million terminals located in the security services of the Member States": The reference to "security services" refers to police, immigration, customs and internal security agencies. See EU doc no: 13305/09 (see p3, pdf). This extraordinary figure of more than 500,000 access terminals is given in a Note from the French delegation bidding to house the planned Agency for large-scale IT systems.

The previously known figure for the number of terminals with access to the SIS was given in 2003 when there were 13 member states with of access to the Schengen Information System (SIS) when the figures clearly surprised the Council of the European Union (the EU governments) who found there were:

"125,000 access points !!!” (exclamation marks in original) (EU doc no: 8857/03, pdf)

Now there are now 25 Schengen member states. Moreover, the new SIS II system will allow access by all agencies to all the data held - under the existing SIS system data can only be access by agencies in the same field, ie: police agencies can only access police data.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"The number of access points throughout the EU there will be as new databases are started and new agencies are created is going to be gigantic. It is well known that the greater the points of access the greater the number of people who have access the greater is the chance that data will be misplaced, lost or illegally accessed. Private security firms, multinationals and internal and foreign agencies as well as criminals all use their "contacts" to get unauthorised access to personal data. The idea that mass databases can be totally secure and that privacy can be guaranteed is a fallacy."

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