Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 March 2022
317. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Justice if she and or her officials have made a submission on a new law known as Prüm II which updates earlier rules on the cross-Border searching of DNA, fingerprint, facial recognition databases and vehicle registration data; if she plans to open a public consultation on the matter; and if she has engaged with civil liberty groups on the matter. [12273/22]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware, the European Commission published a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on automated data exchange for police cooperation (“Prüm II”), Council Decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA, and Regulations (EU) 2018/1726, 2019/817 and 2019/818 of the European Parliament and of the Council in December 2021. At this point, this legislative initiative remains a proposal and thus is not in force.
I can inform the Deputy that the proposal is still in the early stage of negotiations in the Council working party on Information Exchange and Information Management, and Department officials participate in these negotiations, along with other Member States and Schengen associate countries in line with the ordinary legislative procedure. It is not therefore possible at this stage to predict with accuracy the timeframe for adoption of the measure.
As the Deputy will be aware, the specific policy objectives of the Prüm II proposal are to:
- Provide a technical solution for efficient automated exchange of data between law enforcement authorities to make them aware of relevant data that is available in the national database of another Member State;
- Ensure that more relevant data (in terms of data categories) from national databases in other Member States is available to all competent law enforcement authorities;
- Ensure that relevant data (in terms of sources of data) from Europol’s databases is available to law enforcement authorities;
- Provide law enforcement authorities with efficient access to the actual data corresponding to a ‘hit’ that is available in the national database of another Member State.
The Deputy will also be aware that in preparing the published proposal, the European Commission undertook extensive consultations including targeted consultations of concerned stakeholders, including end-users of the system, namely Member States’ authorities using the Prüm automated data exchange, ranging from law enforcement and judicial authorities, national vehicle registration authorities, national database custodians and forensic laboratories. The European Fundamental Rights Agency and non-governmental organisations such as EDRi (European Digital Rights) also provided input in light of their expertise. An impact assessment study was completed and published and a public consultation exercise was undertaken by the European Commission and advertised on their website.
Without prejudicing ongoing deliberations and negotiations, Ireland’s general position on law enforcement cooperation with our European partners is positive. Ireland’s participation in the existing Prüm Decisions and our potential participation in the proposal is in accordance with our rights and obligations under Protocol 21 annexed to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. No decision has been made at this point as to whether Ireland will seek to opt-in to the proposal and importantly any decision to seek such an opt-in will be subject to a vote and the approval of motions in both Houses of the Oireachtas.
