Police across Europe to share DNA database
Pastor Dale Morgan
Police across Europe to share DNA database*
David Rose
Sunday January 14, 2007
The Observer
Police and security services in the European Union will share access to
an unprecedented range of individuals' personal data under a radical
package of measures to be discussed by EU justice ministers this week.
It allows agencies in different countries to search one another's
databases - DNA records, fingerprints, vehicle details - and other
personal information. Even if someone has no criminal record and their
DNA is not on a database, police can ask their foreign colleagues to
collect a sample.
The measures, known as the Prum Treaty, after the German town where it
was signed, are being championed by Germany, which holds the EU
presidency. Documents obtained by The Observer show that the Germans are
also holding secret talks with top US officials in an attempt to
conclude a data-sharing agreement with America - first for Germany
alone, then for the EU.
Last week The Observer revealed that all British visitors to the US will
have their fingerprints stored alongside criminals' on a database linked
to the FBI. 'Prum has several dangers,' Peter Hustinx, the EU's Data
Protection Commissioner, said. 'Some of its definitions are very sloppy
and it creates an infrastructure that may well not be necessary. The
Council of Ministers has not been involved, the European Parliament has
not been involved. It bypasses Europe's normal processes of
accountability and decision-making.'
It threatens to 'trump' a separate initiative to create an EU
data-sharing system - with much stronger safeguards - which has been
working its way through the Council of Ministers, in consultation with
the European Parliament. 'The framework as it stands has flaws,' said
Tony Bunyan, of the civil liberties monitoring group Statewatch. 'But if
Prum, which is much worse, becomes European law, it will be left high
and dry.'
Sarah Ludford, the Liberal Democrat MEP for London and a leading member
of the European Parliament's justice and civil liberties committee, said
that while she accepted the need for security agencies to share
information it was 'vital that the provisions should be transparent and
decided democratically'. She said that the move to adopt Prum amounted
to a 'parliamentary bypass'. Plum began as a private treaty in 2005
between Germany, France, Austria and four other countries. Now member
states can only choose to ratify or reject it as a whole.