Executive summary of the Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the proposal for a Council regulation on migration from the Schengen Information System (SIS) to the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) (recast)
Date: 2012-11-06
Institutions: European Data Protection Supervisor
Subjects: Schengen Information System, data protection, information technology, personal data, technological change








C_2012336EN.01001001.xml










6.11.2012   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 336/10





Executive summary of the Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the proposal for a Council regulation on migration from the Schengen Information System (SIS) to the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) (recast)
(The full text of this Opinion can be found in English, French and German on the EDPS website: http://www.edps.europa.eu)
2012/C 336/06
1.   Introduction

1.1.   Consultation of the EDPS







1.


On 30 April 2012, the Commission adopted a proposal concerning a recast of Council Regulation (EC) No 1104/2008 of October 2008 on Migration from the Schengen Information System (SIS) to the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) (1) (‘the proposal’).










2.


The EDPS already issued an Opinion on the three proposals setting up the second generation Schengen Information System on 19 October 2005 (2). At the time, the EDPS focused his analysis on the need to limit access rights and retention periods, as well as the need to supply information to data subjects. He also pointed out that the new functionality of links between records must not lead to an extension of access rights. On the technical design of SIS II, he recommended improvements of the security measures and cautioned against the use of national copies.










3.


The EDPS takes note of the Council conclusions on migration to SIS II (3). The Council invited, inter alia, Member States to:






—


implement, as soon as possible, the corrective and preventive mechanisms (for current SIS 1+ alerts and new SIS 1+ alerts respectively), so that they can be adapted to the data quality requirements laid down for SIS II alerts,










—


prior to the launch of the migration of SIS 1+ data to SIS II, once again review the conformity of current alerts with SIS II dictionaries, ensuring that they comply with the final version of those dictionaries,










—


via the competent national authorities responsible for the quality of SIS data, systematically monitor the accuracy of the alerts entered in the national system of SIS 1+, this being essential for ensuring the trouble-free use of the mapping/dictionary mapping mechanism.














4.


Before the adoption of the present Commission proposal, the EDPS was given the possibility to provide informal comments on the draft proposal. In these comments, the EDPS expressed his concerns on different aspects of the migration that in his view should be clarified. Unfortunately, the adopted text did not take into account the comments made during the informal stage and has therefore not provided the required clarifications.




3.   Conclusions







61.


Migration of the data contained in SIS to SIS II is an operation likely to involve specific risks from the point of view of data protection. While the EDPS welcomes the efforts made to ensure that this migration will happen fully in accordance with the law, he has some recommendations to make to further improve the proposal.










62.


The EDPS particularly welcomes that under the new provisions, the legal framework for SIS II enters into force once the first Member State has successfully completed the switchover. This is relevant as under the old legislation, the SIS II legal framework would only have come into force once all Member States have completed the migration to SIS II, which would have created legal ambiguity particularly with regard to new functions.










63.


This approach has to be also assessed from the point of view of supervision. In the view of the EDPS, it will result in a transfer of responsibilities during the migration that could have negative effects and impinge on the safeguards that supervision provides at the moment when it is needed most. Therefore, the EDPS recommends that the coordinated supervision mechanism should be applicable from the start of the migration. The recast should provide for this approach.










64.


The EDPS is of the opinion that essential aspects of the migration should be further clarified in the text of the Regulation and not left for other instruments such as the migration plan. In particular, this concerns:






—


the scope of the migration. It should be absolutely clear which data categories migrate and which not, and also if the migration involves any transformation of the data, and if so, which are those alterations,










—


the need for risk assessment. It is important to carry out a risk assessment for the migration, with the results feeding into a specific security plan,










—


the logging of the data. Although the proposed text contains a specific article, the focus of this article refers mainly to the regular processing activities of SIS II rather than to the specific data processing activities of the migration, and the text presents a similar provision to the one in the main SIS II Regulation. In the view of the EDPS, the Regulation should have a specific clause determining what should be recorded, for how long, and with which purpose focused on the activities of the migration.














65.


The EDPS recommends that the Regulation should strengthen the testing obligations by clarifying:






—


Pre-migration tests should also include the following elements:






(i)


all functional aspects associated to the migration process as referred to in Article 11 of the proposal and other issues such as the quality of the data to be transferred;










(ii)


non-functional elements such as security;










(iii)


any specific measures and controls adopted to reduce the risks of the migration.














—


As regards comprehensive tests, the EDPS recommends that the proposal should provide clearer criteria to define if those tests have resulted in a success or in a failure.










—


After the switchover of a Member State has been completed, it should be possible to validate the results. The Regulation should also require that these validation tests are successful in order to consider a Member State's switchover to SIS II successful. Hence, these tests should be carried out as a precondition to enable the use of full SIS II functionality by that Member State.










—


As regards using test data during migration, the EDPS would like to stress that if ‘test data’ are to be based on ‘scrambled’ real data from SIS, all necessary measures would have to be taken to ensure that it will be impossible to reconstruct real data from this test data.














66.


Preventive security measures are especially welcomed, and the EDPS recommends introducing in the text of the recast a specific provision requiring the Commission and the Member States to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risks represented by the migration and also by the specific nature of the personal data to be processed, based on the requirements of Article 22 of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001.






—


Take into consideration general security aspects:






(i)


recognise the specific nature of the data processing activities associated to the migration;










(ii)


establish some general guidelines concerning the measures to be taken (for instance that the data should only be transferred between two systems if adequately encrypted);










(iii)


establish that the Commission together with the Member States, and in particular with France, shall develop a specific security plan, after the evaluation of the possible risks associated to the migration, in due time before the migration.














—


Specific clauses to protect data integrity are also needed, and the EDPS would recommend to include in the Regulation or in a specific Commission decision the following measures:






(i)


an annex with the mapping and validation rules applicable in the conversion, making it easy to verify whether the relaxation of SIS II rules is compliant with the SIS II Regulation;










(ii)


a provision defining the responsibility of the different actors in the identification and correction of anomalous data;










(iii)


a requirement to fully test, before the migration, the compliance of the data to be migrated with SIS II integrity rules.














—


Provide for the disposal of the old system. After the migration, the question of what will happen to the technical equipment of SIS 1+ becomes urgent. The EDPS therefore recommends that the proposal or a specific Commission decision should establish a precise time limit for this retention together with an obligation to take appropriate technical measures to ensure a secure deletion of the data after finishing the migration and the intensive monitoring period.









Done at Brussels, 9 July 2012.

Peter HUSTINX

European Data Protection Supervisor





(1)  COM(2012) 81 final.

(2)  EDPS Opinion of 19 October 2005 on three proposals regarding the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) (OJ C 91, 19.4.2006, p. 38).

(3)  3135th Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, Brussels, 13 and 14 December 2011, Council conclusions.