’s Brexit deal would end police
access to vital EU-wide crime databases, Liberal Democrat Home
Affairs spokesperson has warned.
The Brexit withdrawal agreement states that the UK will lose
access to both the Second Generation Schengen Information System
(SIS II) and the European Criminal Records Information System
(ECRIS) at the end of the transition period.
The Government’s ‘Assessment of the security partnership’,
published today, admits that no agreement has been reached to
enable UK police to continue to use the databases after that
point. The paper states: “The exact nature of future
cooperation on this type of data sharing will be determined by
the formal negotiations on the legal text.”
The UK checked SIS II 539,382,244 times in 2017, or 1.5 million
times a day. The UK also sent and received more than 163,000
requests and notifications for criminal records via ECRIS – 447
per day.
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson said:
“’s Brexit deal risks leaving our
police in the dark.
“British officers rely on SIS II and ECRIS every day to solve
crimes and catch international criminals. Depriving them of
access to these vital data-sharing systems will make it harder to
put serious criminals behind bars and keep us all safe.
“ keeps telling us she’ll work
out a wonderful new security agreement before the transition
period ends, but she has completely failed to make any progress
whatsoever over the last two years.
“The Liberal Democrats demand better for our police and our
communities. That’s why we are fighting to give the people the
final say on the deal, including the option to Exit from
Brexit.”
ENDS
Notes to
editors:
The Government’s ‘Assessment of
the security partnership’ is available here.
SIS II statistics for 2017 are
available here.
ECRIS figures for 2017 were provided
by the National Crime Agency in written evidence to the House of
Lords EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee. See here.
