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The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

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Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#121
post #51
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I can understand some Brexit fatigue, I believe this is a short-sighted view, even if they are out of the EU, geography won't change, so the UK will have to keep cooperating with continental Europe. A weak UK, that would become the pawn of another super power, would be bad news, for both UK and EU. I think this is sad that UK is leaving but no matter what, they will remain our ally and partner.

If any positive may come out of this debacle, it's to set a precedent that leaving the EU is a bad idea.

Well, maybe. The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom.

i.e. Despite the shock of brexit causing EU support to rise pretty much everywhere (IIRC including in the UK, but I'm not sure on that one), most italians are still decidedly negative (which is relevant because post-brexit Italy would be the #3 EU economy).

If Brexit were to be followed by an It-exit or even merely systematic subversion, that could seriously undermine the EU. Note also that some of the former soviet-block countries have governments currently that are much more euro-hostile that their populace, and they might well try a to undermine the EU as much as possible as long as they can do so without being voted out.

And furthermore, if some other countries were doubting their options, I'm not sure they'd compare themselves too much to the UK. There's simply been so much incompetence on the UK government's part that it's hard to believe any other country would need to follow their example. A little more strategically played exit might have been a lot less painful.

Well- assuming Brexit happens at all anyhow, which is pretty much anyone's guess at this point.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#122
post #7

The title is incorrect. The Schengen Information System does not keep data for "all EU citizens", it only keeps such data for wanted persons, missing/stolen identity documents or objects (like cars, boats and so on). There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).

Ok so it’s not all EU citizens What’s more interesting to me is in the Tweet: UK made illegals copies of hundreds of millions of people’s data (since you were mostly hung up on that, I qualified it better). Are you seeing the interesting takeaway?

Another (small) correction: There aren't hundred of millions persons registered in the SIS. The "hundred of millions" comes from the number of EU citizens. Of course, one person's data leaked is too many, but anyway, that's how it is. Also, most of the person alerts do not have binaries (photos or fingerprints); usually only the persons that have an European Arrest Warrant do have these.

I see this as more of a security issue than a privacy issue. The data in the SIS is mostly about law enforcement, meaning that a leak would expose that a person is wanted (some of the person searches are undercover, and the data also covers a person's aliases - so if a "bad" person has access to the data it can react) and also, the SIS data is a "living" organism - using a copy (snapshot) of the data in a law enforcement activity is actually unlawful - if the snapshot is old it means that you cannot find a person that was added yesterday and also that you will find a person that was "cleared" yesterday.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#123
Reading the actual memo in the Tweet, it says that US Companies contracted by the UK were provided access to the data.

So, as a made up example, [Massive US-based multinational consulting firm - IBM was listed in the euobserver article)] was contracted to do work for the UK government in this specific area and was provided access to the data (probably after being cleared to do so via a lengthy process that is typical for contracting with governments).

Do we have any indication that this data was "copied to the US" in this memo, instead of being worked with in accordance with data security policies to keep it in the EU / UK?

That said - if the UK is making illegal copies that's bad, but I wouldn't overreact to the submission title which is not correct.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#124

> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone. The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers. The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "…

The UK has a special arrangement to see the stolen vehicles, arrest warrants, etc. It can't see the Schengen entry / non entry alerts.

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"will aggregate" This was an announced intention in April this year. The implementation of this decision probably needs further approvals and ratifications, and even after that, it takes time. The source material does not even exist, and I expect that in some EU countries collecting this data of all citizens will not be possible due to country legislation. Thus this is certainly far from complete, if even started at…

So we should wait until every one's details are leaked before deciding this is a bad idea because it will inevitably leak? This is like the police refusing to respond to death threats until the person is dead.

They are just saying the title should not contain the word "all". The linked tweet doesn't contain it either.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#126
post #7

The title is incorrect. The Schengen Information System does not keep data for "all EU citizens", it only keeps such data for wanted persons, missing/stolen identity documents or objects (like cars, boats and so on). There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).

The Dutch version of this database supposedly only keeps data of people associated with serious crimes. It has 1.3 million people (all of the Netherlands has about 17 million). These supposed restrictions are just a ruse.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#127

This begs the question if UK/EU got a copy of all the US citizens ' fingerprints in return. It is possible to commit treason against your own country. Can someone commit treason against the EU? Is it a criminal offense?

The title is misleading. The allegation is not that the UK authorities made a copy and gave it directly to the US authorities. The allegation is that the UK authorities made copies for its own and its contractors use. These contractors include US companies- IBM is one example. It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious. It is al…

The title is also misleading in that it claims (unlike the linked tweet) that all EU citizens are impacted. In reality many EU citizens never had their fingerprints taken.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also includes information of 3rd world country citizens'. Like passport info, photos, fingerprints, their visit to Schengen countries. When you apply for visa for Schengen countries, your info will be recorded on SIS. And stored there for 5 years. Note: EU uses the term "3rd world country" term themselves and Im citizen of one of those countries.

Do you mean "Third country"? I have not come across the EU using "Third world country" officially.

not to mention that eu+us+uk does not equal the so-called '1st world' in it's entirety (see also: canada, japan), and also that there is some notion of a '2nd world' as well.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#129

> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone. The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers. The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "…

Other countries that are not in the Schengen area do have access to the SIS. Their access rights were given by them signing various agreements (the status is quite complex, you should check the SA status[1] for more details).

Yes, the title should be millions. Of mostly missing or wanted persons or lost passport and national IDs. Not sure how you would propose to ensure the security of a zone without a massive database of people that are not desired in that zone or documents that should not be used because they are reported as lost by their owners.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#130
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I can understand some Brexit fatigue, I believe this is a short-sighted view, even if they are out of the EU, geography won't change, so the UK will have to keep cooperating with continental Europe. A weak UK, that would become the pawn of another super power, would be bad news, for both UK and EU. I think this is sad that UK is leaving but no matter what, they will remain our ally and partner.

UK has been actively acting on USA's interests for decades, nothing new here. I am a foreigner living in the and it saddens me, but you can't keep someone in a union by force. UK economy will probably get damaged but it will recover (in a couple of decades) and we will all have to thank a) David Cameron, b) BoJo, c) the voters of "Leave" for that.

> UK has been actively acting on USA's interests for decades

can't one say this isn't the other way around?

bretton woods was basically a joint us+uk project, most macroeconomic policy & related geopolitics in the west (including EU) post wwII stems from this..

us is basically fighting iran overtly or covertly on behalf of the UK, and vietnam was massively in the french interest as some 'small' examples..

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