Automated searching of vehicle registration data
1. For the prevention, detection and investigation of criminal offences, Member States shall allow national contact points of other Member States and Europol access to the following national vehicle registration data to conduct automated searches in individual cases:
(a)
data relating to the owner or holder of the vehicle;
(b)
data relating to the vehicle.
2. Searches as referred to in paragraph 1 shall be conducted only with the following data:
(a)
a complete chassis number;
(b)
a complete registration number; or
(c)
where authorised by the national law of the requested Member State, data relating to the owner or holder of the vehicle.
3. Searches as referred to in paragraph 1 conducted with data related to the owner or holder of the vehicle shall only be conducted in the case of suspects or convicted persons. All of the following identification data shall be used for the purposes of such searches:
(a)
where the owner or holder of the vehicle is a natural person:
(i)
the first name or names of the natural person;
(ii)
the family name or names of the natural person; and
(iii)
the date of birth of the natural person;
(b)
where the owner or holder of the vehicle is a legal person, that legal person’s name.
4. Searches as referred to in paragraph 1 shall be conducted only in compliance with the national law of the requesting Member State.
Principles of automated searching of vehicle registration data
1. For automated searching of vehicle registration data, Member States shall use the European Vehicle and Driving Licence Information System (Eucaris).
2. Information exchanged via Eucaris shall be transmitted in encrypted form.
3. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts specifying the data elements of the vehicle registration data which can be exchanged and the technical procedure for Eucaris to query Member States’ databases. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 77(2).
Keeping of logs
1. Each Member State shall keep logs of queries that the staff of its competent authorities duly authorised to exchange vehicle registration data make and logs of queries requested by other Member States. Europol shall keep logs of queries that its duly authorised staff make.
Each Member State and Europol shall keep logs of all data processing operations concerning vehicle registration data. Those logs shall include the following:
(a)
whether it was a Member State or Europol that launched the request for a query; where it was a Member State that launched the request for a query, the Member State in question;
(b)
the date and time of the request;
(c)
the date and time of the reply;
(d)
the national databases to which a request for a query was sent;
(e)
the national databases that provided a positive reply.
2. The logs referred to in paragraph 1 shall be used only for the collection of statistics, for data protection monitoring, including checking the admissibility of a query and the lawfulness of data processing, and for ensuring data security and integrity. Those logs shall be protected by appropriate measures against unauthorised access and shall be erased three years after their creation. If, however, they are required for monitoring procedures that have already begun, they shall be erased once the monitoring procedures no longer require the logs.
3. For the purposes of data protection monitoring, including checking the admissibility of a query and the lawfulness of data processing, the data controllers shall have access to the logs for self-monitoring as referred to in Article 55.
