This week an EU ‘Big Brother’ administration became almost inevitable

<https://www.shoeman.eu/this-week-eu-big-brother-administration/>

[...] the EU Council quietly announced this week that it has reached
preliminary agreement with the European Parliament on interoperable
information systems in justice and home affairs.

The very blandness of the Council’s press release hides the importance
of the agreement reached. The focus is of course the perennial security
threat – the intention is to detect potential terrorists. The Romanian
Council Presidency said today, “To make sure we detect those who pose a
security threat or who are lying about their identity, competent
authorities carrying out checks need to have a full picture of the
person in front of them.”

What will this mean in practice? More comprehensive datasets on
individuals will provide EU border-control officials with a detailed
picture of each individual stood in front of them at an EU border. The
rationale presented by the EU Council and Commission is that this
interoperability meets the threats from terrorism and migration and will
only affect non-EU nationals.

So all well and good, you might think. As we travel within the European
Union, we can be reassured that law-enforcement authorities are
delivering on their duty to ensure the safety of EU citizens.

But, and it is a big but, the Council and the Security Commissioner have
made clear that any new centralised database will include all new and
existing databases. So the contents of the EU PNR (Passenger Name
Record) will be incorporated, as will those of the Prüm database (DNA,
fingerprints and vehicle registrations of EU nationals).

In effect, the new datasets will apply to EU citizens as well as those
from other countries. But this is unavoidable, you might say. Maybe, but
is it really the sign of a healthy democracy to make every detail of
each individual’s life and liberties available to every border control
official? As far as I can tell, there are no ‘layered rights’ of access
to knowledge contained within these future datasets, which means every
lowly customs official or border-force officer will know everything
about you.

It is kind of difficult to have an interesting or enjoyable life, when
you consider that every incident and mistake made when you were in your
teens or twenties will be available for just about everyone with any
kind of official access to data, right up until the time you die. Really
makes a mockery of the concept of personal privacy.

[...]


Press release UE:
<http://statewatch.org/news/2019/feb/eu-trilogue-bb-policing-borders-migration.pdf>
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