Prüm: UK Opt-in — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Immigration
Usha Kumari Prasher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I speak as the chairman of the European Union Home Affairs Sub-Committee which prepared the report to which the Motion in my name refers. For reasons that I shall describe later, the report has been prepared at great speed, and I thank all the members of the sub-committee and the staff both of the sub-committee and of the European Union Committee for their assistance. I also thank the Minister for his helpful introduction to the debate, and of course I accept his apologies. It is important that it should be recognised that there have been difficulties in terms of the scrutiny process The European Union Committee has scrutinised the UK Government’s position in relation to Prüm decisions since at least 2007. We subsequently considered the decisions in the context of the UK opt-out decision taken in 2013 and again in 2014. We said that failing to rejoin the Prüm decisions would mean that UK law enforcement agencies would no longer have automatic access to relevant databases in other member states, thus hindering investigations and prosecutions. The Home Secretary committed the Government to revisiting the question of whether the UK should rejoin Prüm before the end of this year, and said that it would be a decision for Parliament On 18 November 2015, the Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, stated that he did not have a specific date for the publication of the Command Paper or for the vote, but he also suggested that it would be helpful if the committee could report on the issues to help inform the two Houses. We took him on that suggestion. But having set us on this path, just a week later the Home Secretary laid the Command Paper and subsequently announced that a debate would be held in the Commons on 8 December and today in this House. The result was that we had barely 10 days in which to scrutinise a lengthy and technical Command Paper and to prepare our report, which was published on Monday this week. Having said that, I make it clear that we support the Government’s recommendation that the UK should rejoin Prüm, and I am delighted to note that last night the House of Commons supported the Government’s position by an overwhelming majority of 503 to 26. It should also be noted that senior law enforcement officers support rejoining Prüm. As the Minister has just said, Prüm allows member states to search each member state’s fingerprint and DNA databases through an automated system, and to have direct access to vehicle registration databases. In the case of DNA and fingerprint searches, while the initial search will be automated, no personal data are exchanged unless the member state conducting the search makes a follow-up request The benefits of Prüm both in terms of public protection and operational matters are clear. Currently, law enforcement agencies may make requests for sharing fingerprint, DNA and vehicle registration data through Interpol. The current Interpol processes do not require a timed response and a simple request may take months to process. Last night, the Home Secretary made reference to a case in which West Yorkshire Police undertook an investigation through Interpol where it took two and a half months for a match to be reported. In the mean time, the investigation ran up costs of £250,000. By contrast, the automated processes under Prüm set out mandatory times for responding to searches: 15 minutes in respect of DNA, 24 hours in respect of fingerprints, and just 10 seconds in the case of vehicle data. This speed allows law enforcement agencies to target their follow-up requests for personal data, and these requests are more likely to be accepted. Because of the increase in speed, the UK will also be able to make many more requests than it would be able to do currently. The automatic exchange of data relating to criminal investigations could therefore assist in the identification of serious offenders who might not otherwise be detected. It will speed up the process of investigation by eliminating lines of investigation or establishing the identity of an individual much earlier. This will save on the length and cost of such investigations and could lead to earlier arrests, thus preventing further crimes Prüm would also increase the intelligence capacity of law enforcement agencies. The regular flow of data is likely to shine new light on otherwise unsolved crimes. At present, there is no effective alternative mechanism for investigating volume crime; that is, cases where one individual commits a number of crimes. Only through Prüm can the bulk exchanges of data be made which help to facilitate the investigation of such crimes. Evidence also suggests that Prüm can help law enforcement agencies to identify patterns of crime or criminal associations that would not otherwise be apparent. Moreover, in the wake of the dire attacks on Paris last month, we are particularly conscious of the need to fight terrorism. Those attacks have been a reminder that terrorists operate across borders; therefore an increased capacity to identify individuals as early as possible, to conduct investigations and to detect patterns of international crime is essential in this fight However, Prüm is not without risks. We are particularly concerned that UK citizens may be identified as suspects of crime in other member states on the basis of false matches. The implementation of Prüm is likely to result in massive changes in how law enforcement bodies process data. While this will greatly help the police, the volume of data exchanged must come with safeguards. We must ensure that there is a balance between law enforcement and the protection of civil liberties. We therefore support the Government’s plan to implement safeguards We welcome the safeguard which would limit searches by other member states of fingerprints and DNA samples to those who have been convicted in the UK. The UK has the largest database of DNA samples in the EU. We believe that it is right that this and other biometric data should not be available for inspection by other member states in the case of UK citizens who have not been found guilty of a crime. The Government’s proposal to adopt higher standards on the accuracy of DNA matches than the minimum stipulated in the Prüm decisions is also welcome. This will reduce the probability of false positives. We also support the additional safeguard requiring other member states to prove that they are investigating a crime of sufficient seriousness before the personal data of minors are shared. However, I ask the Minister for confirmation that the additional safeguards that the Government propose to implement will be consistent with Prüm, and will not lead to any infringement proceedings by the Commission against the UK in the European Court of Justice Finally, we recognise that the increase in the volume of data requests will have an impact on police resources and that there will be other costs. However, we believe that the additional burden will be outweighed by the benefits to law enforcement of rejoining Prüm. It would be helpful if the noble Lord could confirm that the cost of implementation is likely to be less than was originally anticipated The committee agrees with the Government’s assessment, which is consistent with the views we have expressed over a number of years, that rejoining Prüm would be in the national interest. We therefore urge noble Lords to support the Government’s Motion.