The European Parliament and EU Council have reached agreement on a regulation aimed at strengthening police co-operation across the EU.

The regulation, known as Prüm II, covers the exchange of data between law-enforcement authorities.

The new framework, proposed initially by the European Commission, adds new elements to the existing Prüm framework and closes what the commission describes as “information gaps”.

‘Strong safeguards’

Among the measures included in the regulation are:

• Preserving the existing automated exchange on DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data and vehicle-registration data,
• Allowing searches on vehicle-registration data using the identity data of criminals,
• Starting automated data exchanges on facial images and police records,
• Establishing a central router to simplify the automated exchanges on biometric data,
• Establishing the European Police Records Index System (EPRIS) to allow for automated exchange of police records,
• Including Europol to the Prüm framework.

The commission says that the regulation will align exchanges of information made under the Prüm system to the data-protection framework with “strong safeguards”.

The European Parliament and the EU Council will now have to formally adopt the regulation.