The committee backed an EU Commission proposal to expand the ECRIS system to include information on non-EU citizens.
“We need to restore public confidence that we are able to monitor who comes into the EU, and to find people who could represent a threat. Checking people against our existing criminal records databases, and making exchanging that information much easier, will go a long way towards showing that we can find those people who mean us harm, amongst the vast majority who do not”, said Parliament’s lead MEP on the file, Britain’s Timothy Kirkhope, following the vote.
MEPs also stress that member states should be able to use the ECRIS system to pass on information relating to terrorist offences or serious crime received bilaterally from a third country. Furthermore, they want the EU’s police cooperation agency Europol and border agency Frontex to be able to access the database, upon request and case by case, to perform their tasks.
Employers should also be able to request information about a person’s criminal convictions or any disqualifications arising from those convictions when recruiting him or her to a role involving “direct and regular contacts with children”, MEPs say. They add that member states should endeavour to provide similar safeguards with regard to people who intend to work with disabled or elderly persons.