The EU parliament voted last week to develop what is being described as the largest biometric database on earth. Once created, the database will connect the systems used by various border control, migration and law enforcement agencies into a truly gigantic searchable database for both EU and Non EU citizens.
The new database will be called the Common Identity Repository (CIR) and will unify records of over 350 million people.
What’s the purpose of the Common Identity Repository?
The CIR will streamline a number of operations, bringing together information that is highly distributed – and even siloed – into one place. It will mean that officials will only need to search a single database rather than multiple ones. But accessibility is only one element – it also brings together layers of biometric information such as fingerprints, faces and personal data, like passport numbers.
According to Politico Europe, the new system “will grant officials access to a person’s verified identity with a single fingerprint scan.”
The multifaceted nature of the system can be explained by the way it was approved by the European Parliament. It went through on two separate votes: one for merging systems used for things related to visas and borders were approved 511 to 123 (with nine abstentions), and the other for streamlining systems users for law enforcement, judicial, migration, and asylum matters was approved 510 to 130 (also with nine abstentions).
On this EU officials stated last week that, “The systems covered by the new rules would include the Schengen Information System, Eurodac, the Visa Information System (VIS) and three new systems:
- the European Criminal Records System for Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN),
- the Entry/Exit System (EES) and
- the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS)“
Criticism of the Common Identity Repository
The plan has come in for serious criticism from those who argue that there are serious privacy rights at stake. The civil liberties advocacy group Statewatch had asserted last year that it would lead to the “creation of a Big Brother centralised EU state database and have called CIR as the point of no return.”
The European Parliament says “the system will make EU information systems used in security, border and migration management interoperable enabling data exchange between the systems.”
It is also argued by the critics that once up and running, CIR will be one of the biggest people-tracking databases in the world, right behind the systems used by the Chinese government and India’s Aadhar system.
#Aadhaar is coming in Europe. This is terrible. I see it coming for a long long time… https://t.co/vauIDi0z6c
— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) April 22, 2019
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