Schengen Information System II, personal data protection
Dear Home Affairs (HOME),
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
Referring to SIS II - for which until very recently DH HOME had been the Management Authority of chapter III of Regulation No 1987/2006 - this application concerns documents drawn up by DG HOME.
Copies of the following documents concerning SIS II are kindly requested.
1. The documents concerning SIS II that were submitted to the Data Protection Officer (hereafter 'the DPO') via the 'on line notification system' of article 11 of Decision 597/2008, including all annexes and appendices thereto. The documents directly relate to the SIS II prior notification of article 25 of Regulation No 45/2001.
2. Inasmuch they are distinct from the documents under (1) above, he DG HOME drafted documents concerning SIS II that were submitted to the DPO as the "SIS II prior notification" and entered in the register of processing operations of article 4 of Decision 597/2008, including all annexes and appendices thereto.
3. Notwithstanding requests #1 and #2 above, the detailed questionnaire the SIS II data controller filled in and dispatched to the DPO, including all annexes and appendices thereto. It is expected that the questionnaire will be similar to the DG RTD DPO-3398.1 "questionnaire", Annex 1 of Ares(2011)475763 - 02/05/2011,
4. The documents drawn up by the DG HOME Data Protection Coordinator about SIS II
5. The documents the SIS II data controller addressed to the DPO about SIS II - if any, and not falling under the requests #1 - #4
6. Any internal documents drawn up by DG HOME, including the SIS II data controller, with "guidelines", "recommendations", "policies", or equivalent, regarding how DG HOME would respond to data subjects requests pursuant to articles 13 to 18 of Regulation No 45/2001.
7. The DG HOME internal documents - if any - about any kind of DG HOME "internal" audit of SIS II similar to the EDPS audits provided in articel 45(2) Regulation No 1987/2006. The teram DG HOME "internal" audit refers to any such auditing activity that is similar to that of the EDPS, which was conducted by DG HOME, or another Directorate(s)-General, including the DPO.
It is noted that all requested documents are directly linked with the fundamental right of personal data protection and therefore their full release is subject to an overriding public interest.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Dear Sir,
Your request for access to documents has been registered. This message is an acknowledgement of receipt.
In accordance with Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, you will receive a reply within 15 working days (15/11/2013).
Regards,
HOME ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
Dear Mr. Kolimatsis,
Subject: Your application for access to documents – Ref GestDem No
2013/117
We refer to your e-mail dated 23 October 2013 in which you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 24 October 2013under the above
mentioned reference number.
We regret to inform you that we do not have any documents which would
correspond to the description listed in points 1-5 and 7 of your
application. The Commission has no access to the alerts stored in the
second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) and does not carry
out any operational data processing in the SIS II central system. The
SIS II alerts on persons and objects are directly entered, modified and
deleted by the Member States. The entry into operation of SIS II did not
affect the data ownership of the Member States which continue to bear sole
responsibility for their alerts. The operational management of the SIS II
central system was entrusted to the European Agency for the operational
management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and
justice (eu-LISA). The SIS II is subject of the joint supervision of EDPS
and the national data protection authorities in accordance with the
constituting legal framework (Regulation (EC) No 1987/2006 and Council
Decision 7007/533/JHA on the establishment, operation and use of the
second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II).
Concerning point 6 of your request please find enclosed a model on the
basis of which we draft replies to third country nationals. I would like
to underline, however, that our replies always address the specificity of
every single complaint.
Best regards,
Ioan-Dragos Tudorache
Head of Unit
-------------------
Directorate-General Home Affairs
Unit C3 –Transeuropean Networks for Freedom and Security and relations to
eu-LISA
Office: BRU LX46-05/115
Tel: +32(0)2.29.85.096
The views expressed above are the writer's alone and may not in any
circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European
Commission. If you have received this message in error, please contact the
sender by e-mail or telephone +32 2 29 54490 and then delete this message.
Dear Home Affairs (HOME),
Thank you for the response of 15 November.
This is to kindly request that DG HOME provide me with a response that is formally compatible with the first stage of the administrative procedure of Regulation 1049/2001.
In particular, the DG HOME response has the following two ‘shortcomings’:
1. From both the acknowledgement of registration of 24 October and the response of the DPO-261.2 controller of 15 November it is evident that DG HOME has not assigned a GestDem reference number.
2. The disclaimer at the end of the response of 15 November is in my view incompatible with a response of the first stage of the procedure of Regulation 1049/2001.
Notwithstanding the above, the applicant intends to submit a confirmatory application, which will question certain aspects of the substance of the response of 15 November.
I would therefore be obliged if DG HOME would, first, promptly assign a GestDem reference number, and second, confirm that the response of 15 November is to be understood as the initial reply of Regulation 1049/2001.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
Sent by KUDEROVA Martina (HOME) <[email address]>. All
responses have to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par KUDEROVA Martina (HOME) <[email address]> .
Toutes les réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Subject: Your application for access to documents – Ref GestDem No
2013/5265
Dear Mr Kolimatsis,
Please accept our apologies about our acknowledgement answer dated
24/10/2013 into which the administrative references of your case were not
present, due to an administrative error.
The full administrative elements about your request are the following
ones:
Internal DG HOME reference: 2013/117
Reference: GESDEM 2013/5265
Request date: 23/10/2013
Registration date: 24/10/2013
DG, unit attribution: HOME, C-3
Answer limit date: 15/11/2013
We hereby confirm that our reply to you dated 15/11/2013 (our ref.
ARES(2013)3505812) is the initial answer in accordance with Regulation
1049/2001. We also confirm that the Commission do not have any documents
which would correspond to the description listed in points 1-5 and 7 of
your application.
Kind regards,
JAKUB BORATYŃSKI
Head of Unit
[5]cid:image001.gif@01CEF196.4D352500
European Commission
Directorate-General Home Affairs
Unit C3 Transeuropean Networks for Freedom and Security and Relations with
eu-LISA
LX46 07/049
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 2 29 69452
[6][email address]
[7]http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/ind...
From: TUDORACHE Ioan-Dragos (HOME)
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2013 5:38 PM
To: '[FOI #921 email]'
Cc: HOME ACCESS DOCUMENTS
Subject: 117 - HOME ACCESS DOCUMENTS - Schengen Information System II,
personal data protection
Importance: High
Dear Mr Kolimatsis,
Subject: Your application for access to documents – Ref GestDem No
2013/117
We refer to your e-mail dated 23 October 2013 in which you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 24 October 2013under the above
mentioned reference number.
We regret to inform you that we do not have any documents which would
correspond to the description listed in points 1-5 and 7 of your
application. The Commission has no access to the alerts stored in the
second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) and does not carry
out any operational data processing in the SIS II central system. The
SIS II alerts on persons and objects are directly entered, modified and
deleted by the Member States. The entry into operation of SIS II did not
affect the data ownership of the Member States which continue to bear sole
responsibility for their alerts. The operational management of the SIS II
central system was entrusted to the European Agency for the operational
management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and
justice (eu-LISA). The SIS II is subject of the joint supervision of EDPS
and the national data protection authorities in accordance with the
constituting legal framework (Regulation (EC) No 1987/2006 and Council
Decision 7007/533/JHA on the establishment, operation and use of the
second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II).
Concerning point 6 of your request please find enclosed a model on the
basis of which we draft replies to third country nationals. I would like
to underline, however, that our replies always address the specificity of
every single complaint.
Best regards,
Ioan-Dragos Tudorache
Head of Unit
-------------------
Directorate-General Home Affairs
Unit C3 –Transeuropean Networks for Freedom and Security and relations to
eu-LISA
Office: BRU LX46-05/115
Tel: +32(0)2.29.85.096
The views expressed above are the writer's alone and may not in any
circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European
Commission. If you have received this message in error, please contact the
sender by e-mail or telephone +32 2 29 54490 and then delete this message.
Dear Home Affairs (HOME),
This email is a confirmatory application in accordance to Regulation 1049/2001. Please forward it to the Secretariat-General.
-----------------------------
Dear Secretariat-General,
A confirmatory application is submitted for all seven requests.
As a preliminary remark, DG HOME has not replied to my email of 15 November,
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/schen....
DG HOME released a single document under request (6), which seems to be a reply to a third-country national to a request under article 13 of Regulation 45/2001.
On the other hand, SIS II does indeed store personal data of third-country nationals and it is managed by the DG HOME and EULISA. Even if articles 14 to 18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 are not applicable to SIS II in so far DG HOME & EULISA are concerned, one would normally expect that a few paragraphs would have been written about third-country nationals requests pursuant to articles 14 to 18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 submitted to DG HOME or EULISA. This comes down to an 'argument' for a possible existence of more documents falling under request under (6).
Regarding documents under requests (1) to (5), DG HOME has not released a single document. This is surprising because the Data Protection Officer ('DPO' )has released on 31 October 2013 (GestDem 2013/4985) the templates of the questionnaires that data controllers were to fill-in in the context of entering prior notifications to the register of article 26 of Regulation 45/2001, http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/gener....
There is no reason to think that the SIS II data controller did not fill-in the applicable DPO-questionnaire. An example of a filled-in DDO-questionnaire concerns the DG RTD DPO-3398.1 prior notification, which was released on 13 September 2013 as annex 1, http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/587/r.... The DG RTD filled-in questionnaire has the reference number Ares(2011)475763 - 02/05/2011. This line of reasoning comes down to an 'argument' about a SIS II prior information filled-in DPO-questionnaire that probably exists and was not released.
In sum, it seems that DG HOME did not even attempt to carry out an adequate search for documents. Consequently, the applicant kindly requests that the Secretariat-General review the DG HOME response for every single request.
Although it is not necessary under Regulation 1049/2001, in the event that a document is not held, in spite of what appears to be an express stipulation of Union law (i.e. documents ought to have been drawn up), a very brief explanation would be appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Dear Home Affairs (HOME),
I refer to my email of 5 December 2013, which is a confirmatory application pursuant to Regulation 1049/2001, http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/schen....
As it appears from asktheeu.org, the Secretariat-General has not yet acknowledged the registration of the confirmatory application.
I would be obliged if DG HOME would forward this email to the Secretariat-General.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Thank you for your message. I am out of office until 7 January 2014.
Best regards,
Ioan-Dragos Tudorache
Head of Unit
DG HOME/C3
European Commission
Dear Mr. Kolimatsis,
I would like to confirm you that we have forwarded your request to the Secretariat General of the Commission which will contact you directly.
Best regards,
Zsuzsanna Felkai Janssen
European Commission, DG HOME
Schengen Directorate, Unit C3
Tel: (+32 2) 029 51090
e-mail: [email address]
*****************************
Dear Secretariat-General,
A confirmatory application is submitted for all seven requests.
As a preliminary remark, DG HOME has not replied to my email of 15
November,
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/schen....
DG HOME released a single document under request (6), which seems
to be a reply to a third-country national to a request under
article 13 of Regulation 45/2001.
On the other hand, SIS II does indeed store personal data of
third-country nationals and it is managed by the DG HOME and
EULISA. Even if articles 14 to 18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 are not
applicable to SIS II in so far DG HOME & EULISA are concerned, one
would normally expect that a few paragraphs would have been written
about third-country nationals requests pursuant to articles 14 to
18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 submitted to DG HOME or EULISA. This
comes down to an 'argument' for a possible existence of more
documents falling under request under (6).
Regarding documents under requests (1) to (5), DG HOME has not
released a single document. This is surprising because the Data
Protection Officer ('DPO' )has released on 31 October 2013 (GestDem
2013/4985) the templates of the questionnaires that data
controllers were to fill-in in the context of entering prior
notifications to the register of article 26 of Regulation 45/2001,
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/gener....
There is no reason to think that the SIS II data controller did not
fill-in the applicable DPO-questionnaire. An example of a filled-in
DDO-questionnaire concerns the DG RTD DPO-3398.1 prior
notification, which was released on 13 September 2013 as annex 1,
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/587/r....
The DG RTD filled-in questionnaire has the reference number
Ares(2011)475763 - 02/05/2011. This line of reasoning comes down to
an 'argument' about a SIS II prior information filled-in
DPO-questionnaire that probably exists and was not released.
In sum, it seems that DG HOME did not even attempt to carry out an
adequate search for documents. Consequently, the applicant kindly
requests that the Secretariat-General review the DG HOME response
for every single request.
Although it is not necessary under Regulation 1049/2001, in the
event that a document is not held, in spite of what appears to be
an express stipulation of Union law (i.e. documents ought to have
been drawn up), a very brief explanation would be appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Dear Mr Kolimatsis,
I hereby acknowledge receipt of your confirmatory application for access
to documents dated 5^th December 2013 and registered on 14^th January 2014
(Ares(2014)69706).
In accordance with Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, you will receive an
answer to your request within 15 working days (04/02/2014). In case this
time limit needs to be extended, you will be informed in due course.
Yours sincerely,
BLURIOT-PUEBLA Madeleine
Cellule 'Accès aux documents'
European Commission
SG/B/5 - Transparence
BERL 05/330
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 2 296 09 97
[1][email address]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Secretariat-General,
A confirmatory application is submitted for all seven requests.
As a preliminary remark, DG HOME has not replied to my email of 15
November,
[2]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/schen....
DG HOME released a single document under request (6), which seems
to be a reply to a third-country national to a request under
article 13 of Regulation 45/2001.
On the other hand, SIS II does indeed store personal data of
third-country nationals and it is managed by the DG HOME and
EULISA. Even if articles 14 to 18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 are not
applicable to SIS II in so far DG HOME & EULISA are concerned, one
would normally expect that a few paragraphs would have been written
about third-country nationals requests pursuant to articles 14 to
18(1) of Regulation 45/2001 submitted to DG HOME or EULISA. This
comes down to an 'argument' for a possible existence of more
documents falling under request under (6).
Regarding documents under requests (1) to (5), DG HOME has not
released a single document. This is surprising because the Data
Protection Officer ('DPO' )has released on 31 October 2013 (GestDem
2013/4985) the templates of the questionnaires that data
controllers were to fill-in in the context of entering prior
notifications to the register of article 26 of Regulation 45/2001,
[3]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/gener....
There is no reason to think that the SIS II data controller did not
fill-in the applicable DPO-questionnaire. An example of a filled-in
DDO-questionnaire concerns the DG RTD DPO-3398.1 prior
notification, which was released on 13 September 2013 as annex 1,
[4]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/587/r....
The DG RTD filled-in questionnaire has the reference number
Ares(2011)475763 - 02/05/2011. This line of reasoning comes down to
an 'argument' about a SIS II prior information filled-in
DPO-questionnaire that probably exists and was not released.
In sum, it seems that DG HOME did not even attempt to carry out an
adequate search for documents. Consequently, the applicant kindly
requests that the Secretariat-General review the DG HOME response
for every single request.
Although it is not necessary under Regulation 1049/2001, in the
event that a document is not held, in spite of what appears to be
an express stipulation of Union law (i.e. documents ought to have
been drawn up), a very brief explanation would be appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Dear Madam, dear Sir,
This email concerns the confirmatory application under Regulation 1049/2001 GestDem 2013/5265, and is addressed to the Transparency Unit of the Secretariat-General.
As it appears from the asktheeu.org website, the Secretariat-General has neither extended the 15-day limit nor provided the reply due on 4/2/2014.
I would be obliged if the Transparency Unit would inform me the time-plan of providing the reply.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Aris KOLIMATSIS
Dear Mr Kolimatsis,
Please find attached a note concerning your confirmatory application
Gestdem 2013/5265.
Best regards,
Bernadett BERCZELI
Access to Documents
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit SG.B4 – Transparency
Dear Ms Kolimatsis,
Kindly find the answer to your confirmatory application concerning your
request for access to documents pursuant to Regulation (EC) N° 1049/2001
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents (Gestdem 2013/5265).
Yours sincerely,
Carlos Remis
SG.B.4
Transparence.
Berl. 05/329.