PURPOSE: to strengthen cross-border police cooperation and allow the competent authorities in the Member States to search for missing persons and identify unidentified human remains.
LEGISLATIVE ACT: Regulation (EU) 2024/982 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the automated search and exchange of data for police cooperation, and amending Council Decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA and Regulations (EU) 2018/1726, (EU) No 2019/817 and (EU) 2019/818 of the European Parliament and of the Council (the Prüm II Regulation).
CONTENT: this Regulation establishes a framework for searching and exchanging information between Member States’ competent authorities (the Prüm II framework) by laying down:
- the conditions and procedures for the automated searching of DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data, certain vehicle registration data, facial images and police records; and
- the rules regarding the exchange of core data following a confirmed match on biometric data.
New data categories
The existing framework – often referred to as Prüm I – allows law enforcement authorities to consult the national databases of other Member States as regards DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration data. If provided with a ‘hit’, authorities can then request the relevant data from their foreign counterparts.
The new rules broaden the data categories for which automated exchanges can happen. Once the updated law enters into force, police authorities will be able to also use the Prüm scheme to search for facial images and police records. Moreover, if allowed by national law, searches across all categories to find missing persons or identify human remains will also be possible.
Router
A router is established for the purpose of facilitating the establishment of connections between Member States, and between Member States and Europol, for querying with, retrieving and scoring biometric data and for retrieving alphanumeric data in accordance with this Regulation. It will be composed of: (a) a central infrastructure, including a search tool enabling the simultaneous querying of the national databases and of Europol data; (b)
a secure communication channel between the central infrastructure, the competent authorities authorised to use the router and Europol;
The competent authorities authorised to use the router or Europol will request a query by submitting biometric data to the router. The router will dispatch the request for a query to databases of all or specific Member States and Europol data simultaneously with the data submitted by the user in accordance with his or her access rights.
Upon receipt of a request for a query from the router, each requested Member State will launch a query of their databases in an automated manner and without delay. Europol will launch a query of Europol data.
Any matches resulting from queries will be sent back in an automated manner to the router. The requesting Member State will be notified in an automated manner where there is no match.
For the automated searching of national police record indexes, Member States and Europol will use the European Police Record Index System (EPRIS).
A greater role for Europol
Where necessary to achieve the objectives set out in Regulation (EU) 2016/794, Europol will have access to data which are stored by Member States in their national databases and police record indexes. Under the new rules, Europol will also be able to search national databases to cross-check information it has received from third countries.
ENTRY INTO FORCE: 25.4.2024.