The United Kingdom has been illegally copying classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone.
It has shared the information with US companies and it is demanding to keep access to the database after it leaves the EU next year.
An internal EU document, seen by EUobserver, listed years of violations by British authorities following restricted access to the Schengen Information System (SIS), an EU-run database used by police to track down undocumented migrants, missing people, stolen property, or suspected criminals.
The UK never joined the Schengen area, which includes 26 other European countries most of whom are EU members, but has been given some access to SIS since 2015.
British mismanagement and manipulation of the Schengen system also meant that “persons sought for arrest for instance even for terrorism related activities by Schengen Associated Countries cannot be detected upon entry to the UK,” said the “restricted” EU document.
The British authorities copied the data and handed it over to border police despite the fact that some of the information contained was not only incorrect but entirely out of date, it added.
That meant that innocent people visiting or living in the UK run the risk of being flagged for violations they never committed from data that was unlawfully copied.
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