Police regret loss of access to EU criminal database

Loss of access to an EU criminal database will be a "significant blow" to policing in the UK, according to the Scottish Police Federation.

The database is so significant it could have stopped the 2015 Berlin Christmas market attack had it been operational at the time, a source close to former UK European Commissioner Julian King told the PA news agency.

Officials have spent three years preparing the interoperability project, which brings together seven key archives from across the EU and includes information on visas, criminal histories and biometric data like fingerprints.

The project is currently in its second phase, with completion expected in the coming months.

The source said data belonging to the UK would also have to be removed from EU repositories - due to GDPR legislation - on February 1, meaning European member states will also suffer from a lack of intelligence.

They added the Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri, who killed 12 and injured 56 when he rammed a stolen truck through a crowd of people in the German capital in 2015, could have been stopped had the new project been operational at the time.

The source said: "The irony of this is in the last three and a half years we have spent all this time linking them all up and I don't know what the future relationship will be, that's for others, but what I notice at the moment is that there is no third country that has access to those databases.