EU agrees to share DNA data, Web monitoring

LUXEMBOURG, June 12 (Reuters) Police in the European Union will get automatic access to DNA databases across the bloc to help track down criminals, after EU interior ministers backed the plan today.

Police from the 27 EU nations trying to identify a suspect from hair, sperm or fingernails, will be able to compare with all DNA data gathered for criminal investigation in other member states, via a contact point in each country.

The deal also allows police from different EU states to set up joint, cross-border operations.

''This will make the EU a safer area,'' EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in a news conference.

The plan extends to all EU countries the Treaty of Pruem, signed initially by seven member states.

''Criminals do not respect borders. It is therefore vitally important that our law enforcement authorities have the tools available to obtain information held by other EU countries,'' British Home Office (Interior) Minister Joan Ryan said.

EU states will have three years to make their DNA databases available.

The plan triggered some data privacy concerns. ''We are sleepwalking into a Big Brother Europe while our government stands idly by,'' British Conservative EU lawmaker Syed Kamall said in a statement.

In their Luxembourg meeting, ministers also rubber-stamped a deal to better control who can enter the bloc by setting up a common database for visa applicants' pictures and fingerprints, and vowed to further strengthen joint monitoring of the Internet for terrorist activities.

The visa database will store from mid 2009 the personal and biometric data - digitalised photos and fingerprints - of up to 70 million people applying for visas, the European Commission said.

It will be common to all states in the so-called ''Schengen'' area, a region of 13 EU countries plus Norway and Iceland with no internal border checks.

One country would be able to know if someone had already been granted or denied a visa in another, and whether the person had overstayed their time in the bloc.

The data will be stored for five years and police will be able to consult the database on a case-by-case basis.

EU Interior ministers vowed in their meeting in Luxembourg to agree by the end of the year on common EU rules on data protection in police matters.

REUTERS GP RAI2116