Schengen Information System

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The Schengen Information System (SIS) is a governmental database maintained by the European Union. The SIS is used by 31 European countries to share information about individuals and objects for the purposes of national security, border control and law enforcement to counterbalance the abolition of internal border controls between participating states of the Schengen Area.

The information system was established in 1995 and was originally managed intergovernmentally between the participating states with France maintaining the central system located in Strasbourg.

A second technical version of this system, SIS II, managed by the European Commission, became operational on 9 April 2013. A month later its maintenance was transferred to eu-LISA. An upgraded Schengen Information System entered into operation in March 2023.

Alerts on persons contain information such as name, date of birth, gender, nationality, aliases, arms or history of violence, the reason for the alert and the action to be taken if the person is encountered. SIS does not record travellers' entries and exits from the Schengen Area.

At the end of 2025 the SIS contained more than 94.6 million entries (called "alerts"), of which 92.6 million alerts were about objects, mostly lost or stolen identity documents, and 2.0 million alerts about persons. During 2025 competent authorities performed more than 17 billion searches resulting in approximately 365,000 positive hits.