// Privacy NEWS // Europe is going to develop one of the largest biometric databases

The European Parliament voted on April 16th 2019 in Strasbourg to set up a Common Identity Repository (CIR), a database of European-wide biometric information.

New measures will be taken within the EU to enable security, migration and border management information systems to work together to fight against terrorism. On April 16th 2019, in Strasbourg, the European Parliament agreed on the establishment of what will become one of the largest biometric tracking databases, just behind the one used by the Chinese government and the Indian Aadhar system.

The United States also uses a similar database with the Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

“The European Parliament gives its final green light today to ensure that all our information systems can communicate with each other”, said Dimitri Avramopoulos, member of the Commission, responsible for migration and citizenship.

The systems concerned by this measure are the Schengen area, Eurodac, the Visa Information System (VIS) and three new systems: the European Criminal Record Information System for Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), the Entry and Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS).

To make sure we detect those who pose a security threat or who are lying about their identity, competent authorities carrying out checks need to have a full picture of the person in front of them. The interoperability components will allow authorities to quickly access all relevant information available in existing databases and to check biometric data against these databases to detect cases of multiple identity. Carmen Daniela Dan, Romanian minister of internal affairs

New collaborative measures.

The goals are to set up a European research portal, from which border guards and police will be able to operate on a single screen, create and cross-check identity documents with all of the relevant EU information systems.

To better detect identity fraud, they will be able to identify more easily dangerous criminals through this biometric service that will use fingerprints and facial images to cross-reference them with biographical data. An identity detector will directly verify and identify any person using fraudulent or multiple identities.

In the face of the announcement, there are concerns about the misuse of data, for example, to regulate tourism or for targeted advertising campaigns by transport companies. Members of the European Council promised “appropriated safeguards” to protect privacy. The rules on access and limitation of this data remain unchanged.

The regulations establish the following interoperability components:

• A European search portal, which would allow competent authorities to search multiple EU information systems simultaneously, using both biographical and biometric data.
• A shared biometric matching service, which would enable the searching and comparing of biometric data (fingerprints and facial images) from several systems.
• A common identity repository, which would contain biographical and biometric data of third-country nationals available in several EU information systems.
• A multiple identity detector, which checks whether the biographical identity data contained in the search exists in other systems covered, to enable the detection of multiple identities linked to the same set of biometric data.

Source

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