US Government demands access to European police databases and biometrics [video] | Hacker News Reader

US Government demands access to European police databases and biometrics [video]

media.ccc.de

In Belgium, our Minister of Defence talks about buying services from Palantir, and wants to let Oracle build a cloud for the Defence department. He even dares to say that this will result in our own Sovereign Data Streams [1]. I can imagine this is a guy that will have not a single issue sharing the requested data with the US Government, even in the face of the recent hostility of the US towards the EU.

[1] https://x.com/FranckenTheo/status/1975429782432055712

And that's the country that hosts the EU. What could go wrong :(

> could

? did.

A quick glance at his twitter - you would think he is a minister of some middle-eastern country rather than Belgium. I didn't know about this man before but your comment about "A European minister shilling for Palantir and Oracle" was enough. I am sorry to say your defence minister has a foreign paymaster and it isn't Russia or even the United States.

Germany's Defence Ministry awarded the contract for their sovereign Cloud to Google Cloud. We really have the biggest morons representing us

https://www.heise.de/news/Bundeswehr-setzt-auf-Google-Cloud-...

10 years ago this wouldn’t have been a big deal but don’t think the US in its current form should be given access

> 10 years ago this wouldn’t have been a big deal

Famous last words

Multiple countries have already been sharing this information between eachother and the U.S. to some capacity for some time now and hardly anyone raises a stink about it [0] except us old-man-yells-at-cloud folk.

I think GP is right that if not for Trump, no one would care. Like the majority of the U.S.'s over-reaching policies that have largely only come under scrutiny in recent times (at least, amongst this audience).

[0] https://www.biometricupdate.com/202406/five-eyes-biometric-d...

That ship sailed for the most part. This data is already commonly shared between countries.

10 years ago this would have been a big deal, because the US (or any country) can always change "forms".

Actually that's why you shouldn't create databases like that to begin with.

Mate, 10 years ago I would have raged about this ... and I'm ready to rage now.

> 10 years ago this wouldn’t have been a big deal

2015 is later than 2013,

which means you were all sorts of late, then.

I like how your take-away is "the US is untrustworthy now" instead of a more general "tracking databases will always be abused eventually."

"One of the current big supporters of freedom may hate and oppose your freedom during your lifetime" has always been a very hard sell.

Show them examples of a free place becoming unfree? "Oh, we're different, that can't happen here".

This is for the visa-free travel program (VWP). The US wants to check whether people who show up for vacation without a visa have a criminal record.

If European countries don't want to grant access that's their right, but it's not at all an unreasonable thing for the US to want access to, if the data exists and is easy to check. If someone is a convicted sex trafficker or drug dealer or whatever, I'm fully in favor of not letting them into the country.

"The US" is an ever-changing collection of millions of people. Each with their own individual capacities to do good and bad and everything in between.

When you create systems that are easy to abuse, some of the people in the system will abuse the system.

> The US wants to check whether people who show up for vacation without a visa have a criminal record ... it's not at all an unreasonable thing for the US to want access to

It might not be an unreasonable request for a gov with a long history of abiding to agreements - and w/o a long history of misusing data for the benefit of Gov & gov partners.

Which means it is a fully unreasonable request by the US Gov (of any administration).

    But a request by a US Gov
    that gifts its citizens' most sensitive data
    to one of the world's least ethical data brokers
    so that vulnerable people can be mistreated in bulk?

Burn the paper the request is written on. Threaten to kill the next messenger they send. And brick up the door they knocked on.

> The US wants to check whether people who show up for vacation without a visa have a criminal record.

Surprisingly, (at least some) European countries will tell you directly whether someone has a specific criminal record (given that someone's consent.)

If that's what the US wanted, then that could be given directly. But that's not what the US is asking for.

lol no, I don't think the US is asking for the subset of criminal records which the criminals have consented to sharing.

I think the idea is that if you don't consent you don't cross the border.

eg.

https://www.justis.nl/en/products/certificate-of-conduct

Idea being they could request a relevant certificate of conduct, which is only issued if your record is clean. No certificate means no access.

I dunno. If people crime, are convicted, and serve their time, I'd say they paid their debt.

I know some people don't think that way though. Better hope they never find themselves in that situation.

For a variety of reasons, it's pretty common in many western countries for convicted first/second offenders even for pretty serious crimes to not serve much time. You see that in the UK for sex crimes for example, where offenses with "mitigating" cultural factors are punished extremely lightly.

Which again is that country's choice, but it's not one that countries accepting their tourists are obligated to accept.

Of course, amongst all the examples you could choose, you had to give a xenophobic example. There were no other example you could think of. You are seriously stating that the country who elected a sex offender (on top a being many other things like being a con man and an insurrectionist who tried to overturn a legitimate election and got away with it - hey, isn't that "offenses with "mitigating" cultural factors punished extremely lightly") should seriously screen foreign (very foreign) sex offenders who served their time.

I picked the example of under-sentencing (and early release) which most people accept is the most clearly applicable. The fact that you know exactly what I'm talking about based on a very general statement about sex offense, is strong evidence you know it's true.

In terms of rhetoric, you can argue that Donald Trump is bad for his alleged sex crimes, or you can argue that the US is wrong for vetting tourists, but you can't reasonably argue both at the same time, those contradict each other.

>you can argue that Donald Trump is bad for his alleged sex crimes

Alleged? Convicted by a jury.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/breaking-down-the-verdict-...

I was not really intending to lump civil trials into the discussion because of the lower evidential standard than criminal trials, but sure, I don't really care.

> is strong evidence you know it's true

No, it is strong evidence that I can hear the very noisy xenophobic propaganda and whistle.

A country has the full right to deny entry to anyone for whatever reason.

We have had instances of that in the Netherlands with religious folks who wanted to give hate speech tours. The government just stops them at the airport customs control.

It is ofcourse potentially a diplomatic shit storm.

That's yet another can of worms. Supposedly the US isn't supposed to deny a visa because of speech that would be protected by the first amendment, but the current administration doesn't seem to be following that.

The US has no constitutional or legal obligation either way on this.

so the EU should have access to the US database as well?

Given visa-free travel of US citizens?

If I remember correctly, the visa free travel (esta) asks about arrests as part of the information. Even if you were never charged, never trialled, declared innocent at trial. I would imagine that this would include a uk police caution as well. For all matters, even if under uk law, these are minor and spent (no longer needed to be declared within the uk).

Just mention the UK, but I am sure that other countries have thier own procedures but the US wants all the details for thier own examination.

It would be more efficient and civilized to just have a background check with a visum application. That way you won't have them in the us at all. That was the whole point of a visum? Therefore other motives must be behind the desire for full access. Full access doesn't mean people first have to travel or even a desire to travel. It means full access outside the normal law enforcement formula. Useful for many purposes, public shaming, asset recruitment, radicalization etc

Is there a link to a primary source with more details? I skimmed the video and see some quotes but couldn’t find the policy that they come from

Found this but it’s quite old so seems the US has been trying to get hold of it for a while

https://etias.com/articles/us-demands-direct-access-to-eu-da...

Maybe we should give it to them, and they will all be redacted

So .. is this reciprocal or just a demand?

Dont be naive.

Don't be rude. Provide a thoughtful response.

One way only right now...

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2025/december/us-access-to-e...

EU is trying to negotiate the other way, it will get nowhere.

Just look at precedent, and there is no reason to think it would be reciprocal.

Wait, so they want unrestricted access to all databases or only access the entries for those that travel to the US?

They're presenting the Visa Waiver Programme as conditional so my read is that it's access pertaining to ESTA applicants.

Sounds like another drive-by meant to burn another bridge with EU.

That is the cover story. Really is direct database access for the usual pay to play

Reply on news.ycombinator.com