Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360-379)
Mr Gerrit Huybreghts
27 NOVEMBER 2006
Q360 Earl of Caithness: Do you know if
any of the data protection authorities make use of your statistics?
If they do not, is there is anything in your statistics that might
help the data protection authorities?
Mr Huybreghts: Well, data protection authorities
often have access to statistical information. I know that the
Joint Supervisory Authority at one time published a very detailed
statistical analysis of the Schengen Information System, the kind
of data that I would not be allowed to give you! Sometimes on
the internet statistics of the same kind circulate that I would
not be allowed to give to anyone. On the actual use, the Joint
Supervisory Authority at one point made a report about the application
of Article 96 alerts, the alert for unwanted aliens, and they
based the question that they wanted to treat partly on available
statistics. These statistics showed that the numbers of alerts
differed widely between the different Member States, which indicated
that the criteria for issuing an alert pursuant to Article 96
differed from Member State to Member State. This led to a request
for more harmonisation, a request that was also voiced by the
European Parliament in their discussions on the SIS II. This is
one way in which the Joint Supervisory Authority makes use of
the statistical information. The other point, perhaps one for
the future, is since 2005 we have had regulation on the access
of car registration authorities to the SIS. The Council has to
submit a yearly report to the European Parliament on the way these
authorities make use of the SIS. It has also said that the Council
should contact the Joint Supervisory Authority and the report
should contain how the data protection rules have been applied.
There will be an interplay between the Council and the Joint Supervisory
Authority on the way the data protection is applied under this
regulation.
Q361 Chairman: When you say there is
certain information that you are unable to give us, or perhaps
not allowed to give us, is this because of the sensitivities of
individual Member States?
Mr Huybreghts: Yes.
Q362 Chairman: And sensitivity about
comparisons between Member States?
Mr Huybreghts: That is my general impression,
yes. Sometimes I get the reaction that delegations consider if
another Member State has more alerts for a certain type of object
they could be asked questions why they do not work more to get
the same. It is that type of comparison that everyone wants to
avoid.
Chairman: Or "I have more criminals
than you have"!
Q363 Earl of Caithness: Going back to
the relative halcyon days of the Schengen office by itself before
it got absorbed into the Commission, can you provide us with a
copy of the information that the Schengen office released annually,
its annual report? Is that possible, so that we can see what it
did do?
Mr Huybreghts: I would have to look for that
because it was before my time. I do not know where I could find
it. I can try to find it.
Q364 Earl of Caithness: Could you try
because that would be very helpful to us.
Mr Huybreghts: Okay, I will have a look.
Q365 Chairman: Perhaps I should say on
that point that if, when you come to look at the transcript of
this meeting, you think there is any other supplementary information
that it would be helpful for us to have, we would be very grateful
to have it.
Mr Huybreghts: Okay.
Q366 Lord Dubs: What additional information
might be collected if European information systems became interoperable?
It is a bit speculative as a question, I appreciate that.
Mr Huybreghts: It is one that has drawn the
attention of a lot of people, the interoperability of information
systems. Are you specifically referring to statistical information
or information in general?
Q367 Lord Dubs: Probably statistical.
No, I would not want to say only statistical.
Mr Huybreghts: On statistics, you have seen
the amount of statistical information that is available in the
Schengen Information System, so I do not think that interoperability
will lead to more helpful information. Interoperability in itself
is an issue that has been hotly debated. One point is that in
the debates about interoperability between information systems,
certainly in justice and home affairs, if you look at the documents
there are different types of interoperability described and each
one has its own merits or not. There is one interoperability issue
which is simply between communication systems that is purely technical;
is one system able to communicate with another? That does not
give any information about the content, so that is not useful
in this respect. One other method of interoperability is the fact
that you give common access or simultaneous access to two different
databases. That could lead to more information but the way the
SIS is organised is as a transactional system in the sense you
have one question about one person, for example, and you send
that to the database. If you have access to two databases at the
same time you could see whether that same person is in two databases.
That could be information but that type of supplementary information
is coincidental, it just happens. It is not allowed to do searches
in the SIS where you say, "I want to find all people from
Arab countries between 20 and 40", for example, and compare
that with what is available in another database. Because of the
way that the Schengen Information System works, and the justice
and home affairs databases in general, this type of interoperability
will not help very much. In general, I think interoperability
will not lead to very much more information. That said, there
may be a request at one point but I find that most of the operational
services are usually not really defending interoperability between
different information systems, which probably means that it looks
like a good idea but on the practical side nobody really sees
what the advantage is. That is the impression I have got. That
is rather a personal opinion, but anyway.
Q368 Baroness Henig: To what extent are
the current SIS statistics, and future SIS II statistics, relevant
to the Commission's proposals for legislation on immigration and
asylum statistics, and for an action plan on EU crime statistics?
Mr Huybreghts: I am afraid I do not think there
is any relevance.
Q369 Baroness Henig: So the answer is
none?
Mr Huybreghts: I have seen a document from the
Commission on improvement of crime statistics and it mentioned
the fact that one of the problems was that crime statistics were
organised very differently in the different countries, which is
more or less the same thing I am saying about SIS statistics,
so there is a relevance in that sense but it is rather negative.
Q370 Baroness Henig: So by the time you
have made allowances for all the different ways in which the statistics
are collected and the categories and so forth, there is not much
left is what you are saying, there is not enough common information.
Mr Huybreghts: Right.
Q371 Baroness Henig: Is there any way
round that?
Mr Huybreghts: No. One of the specificities
of the SIS is you get a selection of persons and objects that
are wanted. For example, on cars in a number of countries there
is a limit to the number of cars you put in which in some Member
States is a financial level, if a car is worth less than X euros
there is not much sense if it is found on the other side of Europe
in repatriating it because the cost involved will be greater than
the cost of the car. The same goes for people who are wanted for
arrest. A decision has to be made as to whether or not that person
should be subject to international arrest, which means you have
a selection. In my view you cannot derive general conclusions
about crime statistics in the different countries based on the
information in the SIS because there is so much selection that
has to be done by the national authorities.
Q372 Earl of Listowel: Perhaps it follows
from what you have said that the following question may not be
so helpful, but could you say whether the current SIS statistics,
and future SIS II statistics, including further statistical information
on the SIS which might be collected, would be of use in the development
and evaluation of EU justice and home affairs legislation?
Mr Huybreghts: First of all, this is a little
bit outside my sphere of knowledge. As a general guess I do not
think it would be very helpful.
Q373 Chairman: Rather similar to the
answer to the previous question.
Mr Huybreghts: Yes.
Q374 Lord Teverson: On the question of
Article 96 alerts, this question was really whether analysis is
available by Member States of the different reasons why those
alerts have been made, say between immigration or criminal acts,
different reasons for Article 96 alerts.
Mr Huybreghts: I am not aware of any studies
about that.
Q375 Lord Teverson: Is it possible for
the system to differentiate between the different reasons?
Mr Huybreghts: No, I do not think so.
Q376 Lord Teverson: Could I ask one other
question. Is there any estimate of the amount of the proportion
of information in the Schengen I Information System that is incorrect,
or the error entry rate?
Mr Huybreghts: That is a difficult question.
I know when the Joint Supervisory Authority looked at the Article
96 data that at one point there were remarks about the number
of alerts that they have studied more in-depth and from that I
believe they derived an error rate. I would say that is a question
you should ask the Joint Supervisory Authority because they would
have more of this data than I have seen. The other factor is about
the quality of data and that has been a thing that has come up
during the years. I am not too sure how that is working now but
CSIS, together with the Member States, at one point worked out
a list of quality criteria and on that started quality monitoring.
I believe it is weekly monitoring that is sent to the Member State
where they can see whether there is information that is probably
not correct. I know on certain data we found at a certain moment
there were entries saying "unknown" but in 12 different
languages which made everybody jump up and say, "This has
to go". This type of thing happens. For those things where
there is knowledge of what goes wrong, CSIS has tried to start
up monitoring and the results are sent to the different Member
States and it is up to them to take action.
Q377 Lord Teverson: Do you have any feeling?
Mr Huybreghts: No, because it is sent to the
different Member States in order for them to take action. What
happens is that every three months there is a comparison of the
national databases with the central database. It is the task of
C.CIS to make sure that the data are the same everywhere, so every
three months a comparison is made and each Member State gets a
list of where there are problems and these then have to be corrected.
Q378 Lord Teverson: That has to be reconciled?
Mr Huybreghts: Yes.
Q379 Lord Teverson: Every difference
has to be reconciled?
Mr Huybreghts: Yes.
Chairman: Mr Huybreghts, thank you. I
hope we have not drawn you too far into the political arena, we
have tried to avoid that. I am very grateful to you for your very
frank and full and helpful replies to our questions. Thank you.
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