The purpose of this consultation is to collect the views of citizens and private stakeholders on the establishment and implementation of a Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) for the surveillance of the European Union maritime domain.
CISE is since 2009 being developed jointly by the European Commission and European Union / European Economic Area Member States including civilian and military authorities as well as the European agencies operating in the maritime field. It will create a political, organisational and legal environment to enable information sharing across the seven relevant sectors/user communities (transport, environmental protection, fisheries control, border control, general law enforcement, customs and defence) based on existing and future surveillance systems/networks with a view to achieve a fully operational CISE by 2020.
Interoperability between systems/networks should be established in a decentralised way using modern technologies. CISE should give all concerned authorities access to the information they need for their missions at sea in accordance with the ‘need to know’ and ‘responsibility to share’ principles. CISE will fully exploit existing information and respect existing access rights and personal data protection rules. No “big brother” will be created. CISE will merely exploit in a more effective and efficient manner what already exists.
Finally, the benefits of CISE will materialise directly in enhanced maritime awareness for Member Sates engaging in appropriate data analysis and, further downstream, in enhanced cross-sectorial cooperation triggering overall more effective and cost-efficient maritime surveillance.
