Europol said a list of 3,738 former prisoners sent by Ukrainian authorities in 2023 was assessed temporarily and later deleted, amid reporting that information-sharing had led to entry bans for some Ukrainian refugees.
A media article titled "Separated by war — and by Schengen" claimed Ukrainian authorities shared names with Europol and that this coincided with a rise in entry bans in the EU’s Schengen Information System, or SIS — a shared database used by participating European countries to circulate alerts on people and objects.
Ukrainian citizens were not prevented from entering the EU because their names were entered in SIS, Europol said in a release on Friday.
The agency stated Ukrainian authorities sent Europol the list of 3,738 former prisoners on 31 March 2023 via SIENA, a secure platform used by law enforcement bodies to exchange information.
Europol explained it assessed the list temporarily under Article 18(6) of the Europol Regulation, then deleted it on 29 September 2023 because the data was irrelevant to ongoing Europol-supported operational cases.
Europol said it only processes information shared through SIENA if it relates to criminal activities that fall within its mandate, and that national authorities decide independently if and how they use criminal intelligence shared by a partner country.
How entries into SIS can happen
Non-EU countries can ask Europol to facilitate the addition of names into SIS as “information alerts” at national level by EU member states, the agency said.
That option has not been used to date because the related technical implementation in SIS is still ongoing.
Separately, EU member states and non-EU partners such as Ukraine can exchange operational information through SIENA without involving Europol.
Europol said it can be included in — or excluded from — SIENA communications between national authorities depending on the countries’ decisions.
The agency said it has supported Ukrainian authorities since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, including by strengthening information exchange, supporting investigations into war crimes, monitoring human trafficking cases involving Ukrainian citizens, and working on organised crime and suspected terrorism.
