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The United Kingdom police and border force officials will continue to remain locked out of information on a key European Union database of terror suspects, as well as criminals and immigration offenders for at least another four years.
Such an announcement according to the Guardian has been confirmed by the Home Office, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Authorities in the United Kingdom conducted over 600 million real-time controls on the Schengen Information System II before the pandemic, in 2019, however, in the next year lost access to its instant information on policingimmigration alerts and national security due to Brexit.
A civil servant told the Guardian that they believed to get access to a planned new European Union international law enforcement alert platform for a period of two or three years, based on a 2021 House of Lords report.
Still, the department’s permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, said that having access to Eu datasets is a very early stage and it’s not expected to be finished until 2027/2028.
Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, considered that the Conservatives have weakened the UK’s armoury in the country’s fight against cross-border crime.
“Conservative ministers promised us that they would put new systems in place so we wouldn’t lose vital security and intelligence information from other countries after they pulled out of SIS II,” Cooper pointed out.
She said that instead, that has not happened while adding that it looks like it will now be postponed for years. She stressed that the police badly need access to up-to-date criminal intelligence as well as security information, taking also into account cases where people are wanted for crimes abroad to keep safe the US.
“Ministers should be working immediately with other European states in order to get new security agreements in place,” Cooper pointed out in this regard.
In a document published last week to the Home Office official website regarding the International Law Enforcement Alert Platform, the department’s permanent secretary, Rycroft, noted that in the longer term, “focusing on a potential multilateral solution with the EU” but added it is not expected to be finished before the “FY [financial year] of 2027 to 2028”.
The government of the United Kingdom was obliged to disconnect from SIS II however maintained that it was looking to a future deal on law enforcement cooperation between the United Kingdom and the European Union that provided capabilities similar to those delivered by SIS II.
Britain became part of the SIS II in April 2015. It offered a mechanism for all EU Member States in order to share and act on real-time data on persons as well as objects of interest taking also into account wanted and missing persons.
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