| The enhancement and stimulation of the co-operation between Euregional police forces in their daily work is of vital interest for law enforcement and public safety within the European Union. Actuality, timeliness, reliability and precision of information, as well as accordance of present procedures with the legal boundaries are of major interest for the police in order to perform its task well. International Legal Assistance Centres (in Dutch: Internationale Rechtshulp Centra, IRCs) have been established along the borders of EU countries. The EMMI project started in 1996 aiming at achieving an optimal informative police co-operation in the border regions between The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany (and other European member states, especially France). The European Union funded the EMMI project (Euregional Multi-Media Information exchange) under the 4th Framework Programme (Telematics Applications for the Administrations Sector). Currently, the EMMI project is focusing on the technical, legal, and organisational aspects of information exchange by police organisations in the border regions. In the EMMI-network (which is an Intranet), the IRCs are linked to each other through a separate and secured private computer network. The EMMI-network facilitates multimedia communication via software and hardware for the exchange of information through electronic forms and templates as well as video conferencing and file transfer tools. The project has been finished successfully on November 1, 2003 with this publication: Verbeek, J.P.G.M., Claus, F.J.L.M., and Van den Herik, EMMI-3, Euregionale / Europese MultiMediale Informatie-Uitwisseling, EMMI derde traject (enige juridische aspecten), Maastricht: Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology (IKAT), 2003. Dissertatie waartoe dit onderzoek mede geleid heeft is: Verbeek, J.P.G.M., Politie en de Nieuwe Internationale Informatiemarkt, grensregionale politi?le gegevensuitwisseling en digitale expertise, SIKS dissertation series no. 2004-08, Den Haag: SDU, 2004. |
