France puts 78,000 security threats on vast police database
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
France has flagged more than 78,000 people as security threats in a database intended to let European police share information on the continent's most dangerous residents — more than all other European countries put together — according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
The data has led to questions about whether the system is being misused, with different countries applying different criteria.
A German parliamentarian, Andrej Hunko, raised the alarm about the European database in a question to his country's Interior Ministry about "discreet checks." In 2017, more than 134,000 people were flagged for the secret international checks on people considered security threats.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
To put the French number in perspective, the country's intelligence chief said late last year that 4,000 suspected extremists were being monitored as highly dangerous.