Netherlands: SIS not working well
01 January 1997
A report published on 30 January by the Algemene Rekenkamer (General Accounting Office) on the functioning of the Netherlands Schengen Information System (NSIS), which became operational in March 1995, shows that it is not working very well. It states that only 22% of all passengers are being checked at Schiphol airport, while in the harbour area around Rotterdam controls are sometimes completely absent. There is no national policy on checks and the border police (Koninklijke marechaussee) have no guidelines for handling peak workloads. The Rekenkamer expressed concern about the lack of security of the SIS system: complaining that terminals with open connections to the central computer in Strasbourg were left unattended after use. It also says that it is not unlikely one of the seven thousand civil servants with access to the database will give confidential information to third parties. Also, there is no uniform policy on entering data, so that some police forces do not enter data on missing children in the SIS database, while others see no point in entering information on stolen bank notes. Six police forces did not contribute any information on missing, wanted or "undesirable" people to the SIS computer. Several cases of outdated SIS information were found on registered individuals who in reality were no longer wanted. The Dutch Rekenkamer urges counterparts in other Schengen countries to investigate their situation.