Sarah speaking about common consular instructions (2)

Speech by Sarah Ludford (rapporteur) delivered to European Parliament on Wed 9th Jul 2008

Mr President, this is the third element of the Visa Information System (VIS) package. In modifying the existing Common Consular Instructions, it provides, firstly, for the obligation to give the biometrics to be stored in the VIS and the standards for doing so and, secondly, for the organization of the reception of visa applications. It would, indeed, allow the VIS to start operations. Although a complete revision of the visa rules is foreseen with the Visa Code on which my colleague, Henrik Lax, is rapporteur, the rationale for making a specific proposal separately is that the adoption of the Visa Code is likely to take even longer. But it is important to ensure coherence between the two proposals.

I have been discussing and negotiating with the Council for a considerable period. The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted my report last November and I am sorry I am not able to present a first-reading agreement today, but I believe that is partly because the Council has been rather slow, but also because it does not appear willing to respond with a real movement towards the points that we are making. So I am asking my colleagues to endorse the report, as adopted in committee, and hopefully the new presidency will be able to persuade Member States to take our opinion more carefully into account.

I would cover the same ground as the Commissioner but would put the issues into four groups rather than three.

The first concerns what I see as the Council's willingness to go forward with fingerprinting young children, while ignoring both the issues of principle and the significant costs and inconvenience for the parents with the problems of frequent changes of child fingerprints and also the problem of false matches or rejections. I do not believe I have had full information from the Commission.

Secondly, what I feel is a lack of willingness to work together on the part of the Member States in trying to deal with the new challenge of organizing the collection of biometrics together.

Thirdly, insufficient regard for data protection and data security: despite a series of data loss scandals, Member States are not sufficiently sensitized to safeguarding personal data from loss, interception by a third state or technical faults.

Lastly, the question of the visa fee. I do not think it is right that Member States should make visa applicants pay for their own administrative choices by allowing commercial companies with which they make contracts for collecting biometrics to charge an extra fee on top of the visa fee. I believe that, despite repeated requests, the Commission and Council have failed to provide credible substantive evidence supporting the proposals to start fingerprinting children from the age of six. I think there could be considerable extra costs if you have to take them every two years. So what we are proposing is to exempt children under 12, initially, from the obligation to provide fingerprints, but have a review after three years, following a detailed study on the technical feasibility, reliability and proportionality of the taking of fingerprints from young children. I believe that would be a sensible way forward.

On outsourcing, I have no problems with the general concept, in so far as it improves services for visa applicants and as long as it takes place under conditions ensuring the integrity of the visa-issuing process, that it is a last resort and that the service provider operates in the building under diplomatic protection, ensuring consular officials are present to supervise the staff of the service provider. This would guarantee that data protection is ensured and the material protected from seizure, but I am not getting any concession from the Council on this point. Also I am finding that Member States are not even willing to explore co-location with another Member State or a common application centre.

I will just finish by saying that I went for an opinion to the Article 29 Working Party of national data protection supervisors. They pointed out a paradox whereby, while there is reinforcement of the reliability and security of visas by introducing biometrics on the other hand, if you have means of collection which are not of the same level of security as can be ensured in a consulate or consular section of an Embassy, this weakens the reliability of the whole process. I will deal with any other points, particularly on the visa fee, in my concluding remarks.