sirene
SIRENE National Bureau is a structure with a key role to play in strengthening public order and security on national territory, and a crucial player in the context of Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters within the European Union and the Schengen Area.
At European level, SIRENE Bureaux are responsible for the exchange of supplementary information between member States, related to alerts in the Schengen Information System (SIS), which are essential for the fulfilment of actions required of police forces and other competent services under the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement.
SIRENE stands for "Supplementary Information Request at the National Entries", in Portuguese "Informações Suplementares Pedidas na Entrada Nacional", translating the function of the existing bureaux in each of the Member States, provided for in Article 108 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, created following the abolition of traditional border controls within the European area of free movement of persons.
The categories of alerts in SIS are for the following purposes:
- Arrest for surrender or extradition;
- Return or refusal of entry and stay of third country nationals;
- Discreet checks on people or objects;
- Determining the whereabouts of people wanted for legal proceedings;
- Detecting missing or vulnerable persons who need to be prevented from travelling;
- Seizing objects to use as evidence or seizing invalidated documents for travel purposes.
In the event of a hit on a person or object, following SIS searches, a measure must be taken by the authority that discovered it, and additional information is required.
Why is this supplementary information to the data (alerts) in the SIS, necessary?
Supplementary information makes it possible to ascertain right away whether the reason for its creation (e.g. committing of a serious crime) and whether the conduct to be adopted (e.g. arrest for surrender/extradition) is authorised by the respective national law, making it possible to establish the identity of the person concerned without equivocation as well. The exchange of supplementary information makes police action more effective, making it possible to complement and update the circumstances underlying the alerts, which are, by legal and technical imperative, quite succinct.
SIRENE Bureaux are responsible for the permanent updating and accuracy of data entered into SIS, and this management is carried out in accordance with the Principle of Data Ownership, whereby only the country and, within that country, the entity entering the data, may modify, correct or delete that data.
The tasks and competences of SIRENE National Bureau are set out in Decree-Law 122/2021 of 30 December, which establishes its organisation and operation, as well as integration into the Single Point of Contact for International Police Cooperation (PUC-CPI). The structure of SIRENE National Bureau comprises a coordinator, a deputy coordinator and the operational service.