Madam President, the proposal for a recommendation to the Council on the second generation of the SIS gives us the opportunity to express significant concerns about developments in the Schengen Information System. The SIS was originally set up as a compensatory measure to allow for the free movement of persons. It is, however, gradually becoming an instrument of police cooperation, because the Council is seeking progressively to confer new functions on it and to allow various authorities to access its database. As the Schengen Joint Supervisory Authority states, the proposals to develop the SIS and the creation of SIS II constitute a sea-change in the nature of the system itself: whereas the SIS only alerts the relevant authorities in the event that an individual, whose details are on file, crosses the Schengen border, SIS II will probably become a multifunctional research tool. This would represent a shift from an approach of reactive security to an approach of active security. The prospect of a new system that would enable the authorities to share information on millions of individuals for different purposes, probably using the most advanced technologies including biometric data analysis, forces us to consider the impact that this new system could have on citizens’ rights, freedoms and guarantees. In particular, the right to the protection of personal data recently confirmed in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and integrated into the draft European Constitution drawn up by the Convention. It is true that the need to improve cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs and, in particular, the linking and cross-referencing of information between different databases is one of the objectives of the European Union that the Member States are obliged to pursue. We all understand the need for efficient information systems that are capable of meeting the challenges laid down for us by international terrorism and by cross-border crime, but this action must never endanger the fundamental principles on which the Union is founded as a Community ruled by law. The balance between privacy and security must not be altered by adopting information and communication technologies that have been created by governments as a response to the increased risks posed by new and dangerous criminal phenomena. When the available technologies constitute a threat to the integrity of personal information that should be protected, we are obliged to adopt appropriate legislation that provides for any potential abuse. The report by Mr Coelho, and I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate him, contains a set of proposals that move broadly in the right direction: the need for a genuine public debate on the objectives of SIS II; the need to develop SIS II in a democratic and transparent way, enabling the citizens to access more information about the system and giving people whose personal data are kept on the system to access and correct this data; merging the various existing databases, which will enable us to create a coherent and comprehensive data protection system, which will enable detailed analysis; new authorisations for granting access to the SIS to new authorities; the creation of a European Agency for the Strategic Management of the SIS, monitored and subject to control by the European Parliament.

Political group: PSE