sirene
The National SIRENE Bureau is an authority with a fundamental role in the reinforcement of public order and security in the national territory, and a crucial actor in the scope of Police and Judiciary Cooperation in Criminal Matters within the European Union.
The name S.I.R.E.N.E., acronym for "Supplementary Information Requested at the National Entry", or Supplementary Information Requested by the National Registries in the Schengen Information System (SIS) reflects the function of the existing offices in each of the Schengen Member States, provided for in article 108 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement and created following the abolition of traditional border controls within a European area of free movement of persons.
In concrete terms, the SIRENE Bureaux are organic units of the Schengen Information System (SIS), constituting its human interface, through which supplementary information to the data contained in the system, which is indispensable for the performance of the actions required from services using the SIS - police forces and other competent services, within the terms of the aforementioned Convention-, is exclusively transmitted.
Why is this supplementary information to the data (alerts) in the SIS, necessary?
The main reason is not only to make police action more effective, nor is it based on the fact that the alerts in the Schengen Information System are, by legal and technical imperative, quite succinct, but rather to allow a priori assessment of whether the reason for an alert (e.g, the commission of a serious crime) and whether the requested action (e.g. arrest for surrender/ extradition) is authorized by the respective national law, as well as to, unambiguously, establish the identity of the person concerned, in case of a hit on an alert.
In addition to this legal validation, it is also the SIRENE Bureaux' responsibility to constantly update and correct the data entered into the SIS. This management is carried out in accordance with the principle of data ownership, whereby only the country and, within it, the entity entering the data may modify, correct or delete the data.
The National SIRENE Bureau and its responsibilities are set out in the Decree-Law No. 122/2021, 30 December, which establishes the National SIRENE Bureau as the structure responsible for the exchange of supplementary information related to SIS alerts under the Schengen Agreement, its implementing convention and subsequent legal instruments.
In terms of composition and functioning, the structure of the National SIRENE Bureau comprises a coordinator, a deputy coordinator and the operational service.
For more information see http://www.sirene.sef.pt