Searches in the SIS (in billions)

The share of alerts inserted in the SIS varies greatly among Member States. As of December 2016, more than half the alerts in the SIS were inserted by three member states: Italy (28%), Germany (14%), and France (13%).
The number of searches in the SIS increased from 1.2 billion to 3.9 billion, between April 2013 and December 2016 (see figure 6). A total of 200 778 hits on foreign alerts were reported for 2016, which represents an increase of 30 % compared to 2015. Over 74 % of hits generated in 2016 were triggered by alerts on persons. Member States’ use of the SIS is uneven. In 2016, four Member States performed more than half of the searches in the SIS: France (20.1 %), the UK (12.9 %), Spain (11.9 %) and Germany (10 %). According to a report presented by the ECTC in March 2016, although Europol has had the right to access and search SIS data on arrests, discreet and specific checks and on objects for seizure, it had carried out only a limited number of searches.