The Justice and Home Affairs Council reached a decision last night to improve cross-border co-operation which will mean one country’s police force can search the data from all of Europe’s forces when searching for offenders.
The agreement, which covers all 27 member countries, incorporates most of a treaty signed by seven EU states in 2005. The Treaty of Prum was devised to step-up information sharing in the European Union to help combat terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration.
Some aspects of the original treaty have been dropped, including a decision to have air marshals on flights. The newly-revised treaty is expected to be adopted across the EU by the autumn and will implemented over the next three years.
Home Office minister Joan Ryan has said that the scheme is important because criminals “do not respect borders”.
However, critics have already raised concerns over the level of security in such a scheme, and the shadow home secretary, David Davis, has raised “strong objections” about the agreement.
The UK’s DNA database is reported to be the biggest in the world, with nearly a million people on record that have never been convicted of a criminal offence.
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