Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)
Mr Gerrit Huybreghts
27 NOVEMBER 2006
Q340 Lord Dubs: Is information available
about the impact on SIS of the application of the European Arrest
Warrant, and of the amendments to the current SIS rules adopted
in 2004 and 2005, and applied in 2005 and 2006?
Mr Huybreghts: The application of the European
Arrest Warrant, as far as I know, has had no dramatic impact on
the SIS. The only impact it has had is on the so-called "flagging".
I do not know whether you are familiar with the term.
Q341 Lord Dubs: Yes.
Mr Huybreghts: Flagging means when one country
asks to arrest a certain person, for the reasons of that country
the country can say that it does not want to act on that. That
is called putting a "flag" up. One of the main reasons
for flagging was the fact that countries did not extradite their
own nationals. In the European Arrest Warrant it was agreed that
should happen, countries should extradite their own nationals.
The number of flags that are put is likely to diminish, and the
information I have is that they are diminishing. That is the only
impact on the SIS of the European Arrest Warrant that I know on
of the statistical side. On the other changes that were adopted
in 2004 and 2005, what has happened is the length of conservation
periods for certain alerts have been extended and because they
have been extended you can see the numbers of data in the system
to go up. That is not because more data are collected but because
they are kept for a longer period.
Q342 Baroness Henig: I think there may
be a political element to my question, in which case if that is
a problem please say so. Would it be possible to collect further
statistical information, in particular upon the impact of the
Schengen Information System in Member States and the operation
of the SIRENE system? What difficulties stand in the way of the
collection of further information?
Mr Huybreghts: One of the problems is what the
definition of "impact" is. What difficulties stand in
the way of the collection of further information? Basically, as
I explained, it is a system which for the large part, for the
operational part, is oriented for the countries themselves, so
this is purely a national matter and, therefore, at the central
level you do not see that information. The impact that the SIS
has had on the way countries organise themselves or organise their
legal and justice systems is something I do not have any information
about. I have never heard this being discussed.
Q343 Baroness Henig: So the problems
are really technical in a way in aligning different Member States'
systems to make some sense to have the things collected centrally.
Mr Huybreghts: It is not so much aligning rather
it is the fact that the whole organisation surrounding the police
and justice is very much a national matter.
Q344 Baroness Henig: What I meant by
alignment was that they are operating in different ways.
Mr Huybreghts: Yes.
Q345 Earl of Listowel: Does the statistical
information which is available enable us to draw any conclusions
about the efficiency and operational effectiveness of the SIS?
Mr Huybreghts: The problem about questions on
efficiency and operational effectiveness is that there is no exact
way to measure them. You would need to have a standard. If there
were two competing systems it would be possible to say "this
one is the more efficient". At this moment my impression
is that the statistical information does not allow us to draw
any conclusions about that.
Q346 Chairman: Is it fair to ask you
how SIS and SIS II compare in terms of efficiency?
Mr Huybreghts: Since SIS II is not working yet
it is very difficult to say that.
Q347 Chairman: Sorry, I meant SIS II
as projected.
Mr Huybreghts: Even so, it is only when it is
working that we will see whether it has worked. In large part
it depends on the use that people make of the information that
is provided.
Q348 Chairman: Of course.
Mr Huybreghts: In the SIS II there will be much
more information stored, certainly on objects. The idea is that,
for example, industrial equipment will be in there and data about
credit cards. That could lead to a greater impact on crime fighting
but that is still to be projected. The only thing that I hear
about statistics concerns the so-called Article 99 alerts. These
are alerts for specific checks and discreet observation. Discreet
observation means if the police spot a car and the car is subject
to an alert Article 99 for discreet observation, in that case
the policeman is supposed to go over and ask a number of questions
and try to find out, for example, who the persons in there are,
how many they are and what their apparent business is and to report
it back. In almost every evaluation that we make of that police
forces should make more use of that.
Q349 Lord Teverson: What we are trying
to explore is the statistics that have come out of SIS I or the
existing system. How do you see those as relevant? What do they
tell us about how this new system should be developed, if at all?
Has that been taken into consideration in practice?
Mr Huybreghts: The present statistical material
has been taken into account for the dimensioning of the system
because it gives an indication of how much data there will be
in SIS II, but of course for industrial equipment and credit cards,
et cetera, where there is no presence yet in the SIS it is guessing.
Q350 Lord Teverson: Could I ask about
that to get some idea of size. At the moment it goes up to 18
Member States and it is currently functioning on, I suppose, 13—
Mr Huybreghts: Thirteen Member States, yes.
Q351 Lord Teverson: I do not know how
you measure the size of the present system but how many times
larger is it expected to be, say, once the new accession states
have been included? Have you got some sort of measure of that?
Mr Huybreghts: Unfortunately, no.
Q352 Lord Teverson: How many floppy disks
would it take to fill up?
Mr Huybreghts: I cannot answer that, sorry.
It is not that this is in any way confidential but I just do not
have the figures on that.
Q353 Lord Teverson: I apologise, I interrupted
your answer.
Mr Huybreghts: I have forgotten what I was saying.
Q354 Lord Teverson: That is my mistake,
I apologise for that. We were talking about what had been learned
from the production of statistics this time round that had been
taken into consideration in the development of the new system.
Mr Huybreghts: It helps in dimensioning the
system. The operational Member States were asked to provide statistics
on the number of queries they made. That was in order to dimension
the network that would be used. These are the only elements that
were used.
Q355 Chairman: I heard you say that we
wrongly described you as an expert on statistics but, if I may
say so, you are showing yourself extremely expert in your replies.
Mr Huybreghts: Thank you.
Q356 Chairman: How far are you involved
in developing SIS II? Is your very obvious knowledge and experience
in the collection of statistical information for SIS being used?
Are you part of the development of SIS II?
Mr Huybreghts: No, I am not. The development
of SIS II has been given to the Commission. The Commission has
taken note of the information that is available and has asked
for further information from Member States. If I am not mistaken,
at this moment they are trying to get an idea from the new Member
States of the number of data, how many data they think they will
introduce. When I spoke earlier about the fact that the number
of queries has been collected, that is also something the Commission
has done. On the side of the Council Secretariat I am trying to
follow up as much as possible. If there are questions from the
Commission side about things I know then I will provide them.
Chairman: We will be seeing the Commission
tomorrow so we will bear that in mind. Thank you very much.
Q357 Lord Avebury: In reply to Lord Teverson
you mentioned two examples of further information which will be
contained in SIS II that is not in SIS I. Will these additional
features of SIS II require changes in the statistical information
which is collected? Do you foresee any problems in collecting
information for the regular reports which are required by the
legislation on SIS II? Could I ask you in particular what information
will be collected on the relative frequency of one-to-one and
one-to-many searches based on biometric data? Will there be any
difficulty in collecting information for the regular reports on
the operation of SIS II which are required by the legislation?
Mr Huybreghts: On the biometric data I am not
aware of any specific collection of information or statistics.
I believe you have had sessions before on the biometrics where
you were informed that the one-to-many searches would only be
installed after a report by the Commission.
Q358 Lord Avebury: Yes.
Mr Huybreghts: So everyone is waiting until
that report for action. Whether it will be difficult to collect
statistical information, it always is. It is difficult with 15
Member States participating and once it is 25 or 27 it will be
more difficult to get discipline with all the states in order
to get information. That said, I suspect that in the new system
there will be more automatic ways of collecting information. One
difference is that now you can extend the period of an alert.
For the SIS II it will be required to make statistics available
about that which are not available at this moment. In the new
legislation there will be a request to have statistics on the
number of queries that are made, the number of consultations,
which is something that is not collected today.
Q359 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Is it planned to collect information in relation to the use of
SIS II for asylum applications as far as you are aware?
Mr Huybreghts: No, not specifically. In that
respect I have to tell you that the Council publishes a yearly
overview of all authorities that have direct access to the SIS
and at this moment only Austria gives the asylum authorities access
to the SIS, which in the present system means that if there is
a statistic anywhere about asylum applications in the SIS it would
be in Austria. It is purely a national statistic.
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