When the term "SIENA" is mentioned, many people automatically think of the Italian town in Tuscany - of vacations, a beautiful region and good food. From a police perspective, the only thing that comes to mind is a foreign country. In reality, SIENA (Secure Information Exchange Network Application) is a communication tool.
Europol makes SIENA available to EU member states and associated third countries free of charge as a web application for the international exchange of information in criminal matters. SIENA is not a database, but a communication tool. Nowadays, there are hardly any investigations without international references. The ability to communicate internationally is therefore very important for a professional police force. This is exactly what SIENA offers.
Europol aims to develop SIENA into a prioritized information channel within the EU and associated third countries in order to transmit information quickly and securely to where it is needed - i.e. to the person in charge of criminal investigations. The involvement of SIENA is to become a standard measure in connection with investigation proceedings. Europol is thus also strengthening its role as the central office for European crime prevention.
SIENA - the European outlook
SIENA was developed by Europol and was initially used internally and for communication with the central offices of the individual states. As part of Europol's strategic reorientation, the idea of transmitting criminally relevant information from A to B quickly and securely also plays a major role. SIENA is therefore a small but important building block in the rapidly changing police IT structure as part of projects such as "Police 2020" and "Integrated Data Management Concept" at European and national level. IT processes are to be automated according to the motto "enter once - use many times". SIENA is part of this change. The system is constantly being further developed, technically evaluated and adapted to the technical requirements and wishes of users. The Conference of Interior Ministers has now decided on the nationwide rollout and the BKA has taken the lead and created a framework concept that is binding for all participants. It contains explanations on authorizations, network files and defines standards that must be observed when using SIENA. This ensures a uniform nationwide standard.
In NRW, the NRW State Criminal Police Office (LKA) is carrying out the rollout and has developed a technical and training concept for this purpose, which has been implemented since October 2017. Stage 1 of the rollout ended with the last seminar in September 2018. All district police authorities (KPB) in NRW are now connected to the SIENA channel and are able to use it to communicate with other countries.
SIENA is fast and user-friendly
The experience with SIENA has been very positive and the system has been well received by users and administrators. This experience is also shared by other federal states. The BKA is gradually releasing offense areas in which SIENA can be used. On average, requests from NRW are answered within one week. Hungary holds the record with 30 minutes. This is possible because business routes abroad are shortened and manual re-entries and data transfers are eliminated. Incoming responses are usually of high quality and often lead to further investigative approaches. SIENA can also be used for communication with third countries with which Europol has concluded corresponding agreements. For example, investigators from Baden-Württemberg used SIENA in a narcotics case and quickly obtained information from Colombia.
