Government database

Canada

• National DNA Data Bank, a system established under the DNA Identification Act of 1998 to hold DNA profiles of persons convicted of designated offenses and DNA profiles obtained from crime scenes. Profiles may only be used for law enforcement purposes. At the end of September 2013 the National DNA Data Bank held 277,590 profiles in the Convicted Offender Index and 88,892 profiles in the Crime Scene Index with from 500 to 600 new samples received each week.
• Government Electronic Directory Services, a directory of Canadian federal public servants throughout the country, including names, titles, telephone and facsimile numbers, departmental names, office locations, and e-mail addresses for some public servants.
• Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, a free client management application created in 1995 to assist service providers in managing their operations and collecting information about the population using homeless shelters, client bookings, provision of goods and services, housing placement, and case management. Its data may be exported and incorporated into the National Homelessness Information System. Personal identifiers are replaced by unique, encrypted identifiers before the data is exported to ensure that client information is and remains anonymous.
• National Homelessness Information System, a database system designed to collect and analyze baseline data on the use of homeless shelters in Canada. It includes anonymized data imported from Homeless Individuals and Families Information System systems as well as data shared by some cities and provinces that do not use that system.
• System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval, a filing system developed for the Canadian Securities Administrators to facilitate the electronic filing of securities information, allow for the public dissemination of Canadian securities information collected in the securities filing process, and provide electronic communication between electronic filers, agents and the Canadian Securities Administrator.

  European Union

• Eurodac system, a computerised central database established in December 2000 for comparing fingerprints of asylum seekers and some categories of illegal immigrants and a system for electronic data transmission between EU countries and the database. The database contains fingerprints, EU country of origin, sex, place and date of asylum application or apprehension of the person, reference number, date fingerprints were taken, and the date when the data was transmitted.
• Data Retention Directive, a directive passed by the legislative body of the European Union on 15 December 2005 that requires telecommunication operators to retain metadata for telephone, Internet, and other telecommunication services for periods of not less than six months and not more than two years from the date of the communication as determined by each EU member state and, upon request, to make the data available to various governmental bodies. Access to this information is not limited to investigation of serious crimes, nor is a warrant required for access. The Data Protection Directive regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union.

  Denmark

• Central DNA Profile Register, a register that contains DNA profiles for suspects and people convicted of offences that could lead to a prison sentence of 1.5 years or more as well as profiles from crime scenes. DNA profile information can be exchanged with other EU member states through Interpol.
• Civil Registration System, a nationwide centralised register of personal information established in 1968 and used by virtually every government agency in Denmark. It contains names, addresses, Danish personal identification numbers, dates and places of birth, citizenship, and other associated information.
• Danish National Biobank and National Biobank Registry, two elements of an initiative to allow researchers to link data from individual Danish national registers with information extracted from more than 15 million biological samples anonymously. The National Biobank Registry gives researchers on-line access to combined data from all the biobanks participating in the Danish National Biobank initiative, including the Danish National Birth Cohort, the Danish Neonatal Screening Biobank, the Danish Patobank, the Danish Cancer Society's project biobank "Kost, kræft og helbred ", the DNB biobank at Rigshospitalet, and the Cancer biobanks. The National Biobank Registry will link information from the individual biobanks with disease codes and demographic information from individual national registries, including the Danish Civil Registration System, the Danish National Patient Register, and the Danish Pathology Register. By searching the National Biobank Registry it will be possible to look up the number of biological specimens available for patients with a certain diagnosis.
• Danish Neonatal Screening Biobank, blood samples from people born after 1976, kept at the Statens Serum Institut to test for Phenylketonuria and other diseases, and for DNA tests to identify deceased and suspected criminals. Parents can request that the blood sample of their newborn be destroyed after the result of the test is known.

  France

• Carnet B: Created in 1886, the Carnet B was, initially, a list of foreigners suspected of espionage. Prior to World War I, the list was gradually expanded to include all persons likely to disturb public order and antimilitarists who might oppose national mobilization. Those listed were to be arrested in the event of war. In July 1914 the list contained 2,481 names. However, after the assassination of socialist leader and committed antimilitarist Jean Jaurès a few days before the start of World War I, most of the left-wing rallied to the Union sacrée government and Carnet B was not used to detain individuals. The maintenance and use of Carnet B was discontinued on 18 July 1947.
• Tulard database: In the interwar period, police officer André Tulard set up a database registering communists and others activists. The database was used under Vichy to register Jews. These files were given to Theodor Dannecker of the Gestapo and greatly assisted the French police in carrying out raids against Jews, who were then interned at Drancy camp before being deported to concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
• INSEE code: During the World War II, René Carmille created what would become the INSEE code used as a national identification number for people, organizations, and administrative regions. INSEE is the acronym for the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies.
• Répertoire national d’identification des personnes physiques: a national directory for the identification of natural persons, maintained by INSEE since 1946. It is regularly updated through statistical bulletins on civil status changes, drawn up and sent to INSEE by municipalities and containing details of births, deaths, recognitions and marginal notes made in birth certificates for persons born in metropolitan France or its overseas departments. The directory serves four purposes: to eliminate confusion arising from people sharing the same name; use by tax authorities and pension funds to verify the civil status of individuals; contributing to health monitoring by sending daily information on deaths to the Institute for Health Monitoring; and generating demographic statistics to assist in decision-making. It includes information on the civil status of citizens: family name, sometimes the usual name, given names, gender, date and place of birth, number of birth certificate, date and place of death and death certificate number for the recently deceased, and national registration number. The National System of Management of the Identities managed by Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Vieillesse, the social security pension administrator, is a copy of this data.
• Système Automatisé pour les Fichiers Administratifs et le Répertoire des Individus : an "Automated System for Administrative Files and Directories of Individuals" was to have been a centralized database of personal data collected from many administrative departments and connected using the INSEE code. The massive popular rejection of this project after it became known to the public promoted the creation of the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés to ensure data privacy. Databases are to have the CNiL's approbation before being authorized. In 2006 more than half the police records overseen by the CNiL were found to contain mistakes which required correction.
• Système de traitement des infractions constatées : a "Processing System for Recognized Offences" to register criminal offenders and plaintiffs was created in 1995 and legalized in 2001. In January 1997 it held the records of records of 2.5 million offenders and 2.7 million victims. In 2006 the STIC held 24.4 million records. Records are held for a maximum of 40 years. The STIC has sparked several controversies, as some people have not been able to find jobs because they were registered in the STIC. In 2005 the CNiL discovered errors in 47% of the records included in the STIC database.
• JUDEX: a system to register criminal offenders and plaintiffs used by the Gendarmerie is similar to the STIC. JUDEX contained 2.2 million records in 2003.
• Fichier national automatisé des empreintes génétiques for registering DNA information, was created in 1998. First used to register sex offenders, it has since been extended to cover almost any crime, including protestors engaged in civil disobedience. It has grown from 2,807 profiles in 2003, to 330,000 in 2006, and 1.27 million in 2009.
• Fichier judiciaire automatisé des auteurs d'infractions sexuelles: The Automated Criminal File of Sex Offenders, is a sex offender database operated by the Justice Minister created in 2004. The database records the name, sex, date and place of birth, nationality, alias, address, nature of the offense, date and place where the offense was committed, nature and date of the decision, and penalties or measures imposed. In October 2008 the database contained records for some 43,408 people.
• Base-élèves system: the Students-Base system, a database containing personal data on children age three and older and their families, including psychosocial data and information on competence, skills, and problems. Although initially accessed by educators and social actors, the new French law of March 2007 for the prevention of delinquency granted access to such information to Mayors for the purpose of preventing delinquency. However, after protests, data related to citizenship, language, and culture of origin were removed in October 2007. The Conseil d'État, the highest administrative jurisdiction, held in two decisions of 19 July 2010 that the "Base-élèves" and the computerised file of student identifiers were not functioning in compliance with the Data Protection Act. Further, the Conseil déetat considered that the collection of health data in the "Base-élèves" relating to children was not relevant and reminded in its decisions that parents have a right to object to the collection and processing of their children's data. It also held that the retention period of 35 years for the children identifiers contained in the database was excessive.
• ELOI index: short for l’éloignement, the ELOI index is a register for foreigners and illegal aliens created by the Interior Minister in 2006 and subsequently declared illegal by the Conseil d'État.
• Parafes: A 7 August 2007 decree generalized a voluntary biometric profiling program of travellers in airports using fingerprints. The new database would be interconnected with the Schengen Information System as well as with a national database of wanted persons. The CNiL protested against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of fingerprints and to the interconnection between the two systems.
• Loppsi II: In February 2010, the French Parliament adopted the Loppsi II "bill on direction and planning for the performance of domestic security", a far-reaching security bill that modernizes Internet laws, criminalizes online identity theft, allows police to tap Internet connections as well as phone lines during investigations, and targets child pornography by ordering ISPs to filter Internet connections. The law permits the creation of an informatic platform connecting numerous government databases. Previously, in 2004, the National Assembly voted the loi pour la confiance dans l'économie numérique to implement the Electronic Commerce EU directive. This law requires all Internet service providers, phone operators, webmasters, etc., to keep information on visitors for from one to three years. The information is to be made available for use by the RG domestic intelligence agency, counter-intelligence agencies, the judicial police and investigative magistrates.
• Fingerprints: In a decision delivered on 18 April 2013, the European Court of Human Rights found that a 1987 French Decree related to storing fingerprint data is a privacy violation because:
• * the scope of the Decree is not limited to certain serious crimes, such as sexual offences or organised crime, but includes all offences, even the minor ones;
• * the database did not distinguish between those data subjects who were convicted and those who were not, nor did it make a distinction on whether the data subjects had been officially charged; and
• * the maximum data retention period of 25 years was disproportionate to the legitimate purpose of the Decree.