Europol and the Schengen Information System: A Dangerous ‘Unsupervised’ Extension of Powers

Regulation (EU) 2022/1190 amending the Regulation (EU) 2018/1862 on the use of the Schengen Information System (hereafter ‘SIS’) in the field of police and judicial cooperation was adopted on the 6<inf>th</inf>of July 2022. The Commission stated in the Explanatory Memorandum attached to the proposal that ‘[t]his is an important paradigm change for SIS’. Initially, the idea was to allow Europol to enter information alerts on suspects and criminals and thereby to not only have access but formally update the SIS. Due to the reluctance of some Member States, the reform did not go as far as this. The current legal framework, however, still gives Europol a crucial role, as the Agency can propose Member States to enter information alerts in the SIS. While this is a step down compared to the Commission proposal, this article shows that this remains a paradigm change not only for the SIS, but also for Europol as an agency, and ultimately for the nature of supervision. The article first discusses the new changes of the SIS and their ensuing challenges in relation to data quality, lack of transparency, lack of clarity of the procedure and the extended scope of actions. It then addresses the supervisory challenges that may emerge in this new legal architecture. The issue of supervision shall be addressed pre-alert, before the proposal for an alert has been made, during the alert, when an alert is proposed, and finally post alert after an alert has been entered into the system.