Border surveillance in a transnational environment - aspects of data storage and dissemination

This paper deals with aspects of data sharing in a transnational environment. Comprehensive border and coastal surveillance and control are key components of EU's global protection. At present border surveillance is often accomplished through separated stovepiped systems. Data that might be of interest for not only one but many surveillance units from different Member States, especially in regions in which two or more Member States have a border with an third, non-EU country, can't be shared and thus the capabilities to secure the border are limited. To overcome these limitations, interoperable transnational surveillance systems, capable to include all relevant data sources and to share them among border related law enforcement bodies are needed. As the output of sensor and exploitation systems shall be accessible by different users, standardized data formats are needed. Commercial standards were often not defined for the surveillance domain, thus they would need to be adapted. Standards defined within the military domain are of interest because they already take the sharing of products in a heterogeneous security environment into account. Additionally the cooperation of military and civil surveillance and reconnaissance systems will be of greater importance in the future.