Schengen Information System
Schengen Information System, also known as SIS, is an information system used in a number of European countries that provides data on persons or objects, as recorded by the participant countries. Data entries include, for example, people under an arrest warrant or missing objects. This information is shared among its users, signatories of the Schengen treaty, which includes the countries of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Since its formation, several other European nations have joined the system, including Austria, Iceland, Sweden and Finland.
In SIS, information is stored according to local legislation of the reporting country. It has over a million individual entries, containing the following data entries about the recorded persons:
- name and forename, any aliases possibly registered separately;
- any particular objective and permanent physical features;
- first letter of second forename;
- date and place of birth;
- sex;
- nationality;
- whether the persons concerned are armed;
- whether the persons concerned are violent;
- reason for the report;
- action to be taken.
A second, more complex version is being planned (SIS II), with the aim of becoming an investigation system, superseding the current reporting system, which has become technically outdated and inadequately resourced to handle the increase in the number of participant contries. The new system would contain more data categories, cf. person and object categories in the current implementation of SIS. Also the list of authorities that have the access to the system would be extended to include, for example, juridical authorities, Europol, and security services. A person's SIS file could be accessed by hand-held computers across Europe, and would be accessible to police, custom, and border officials when conducting checks of personal documentation.
Controversy
Government-controlled information gathering systems, such as SIS, raise fears over the invasion of privacy. SIS has been the target of a number of protests, including a protest camp of 2,000 No Border network activists from July 18 to July 28, 2002 in Strasbourg, France, where the SIS is located.
Many fear that the second phase of SIS could include fingerprints, photographs, and DNA profiles, the use of which would spread to authorities or organizations for whom the data was not originally intended.
