Commission Action Plan to Tackle Travel Document Fraud

In efforts to stem terrorism and organized crime and improve border protection and migration management, the European Commission announced on Thursday, a new action plan aimed at enhancing the security of travel documents.

Travel document fraud has become an issue of concern after this year’s terrorist attacks in Europe and ongoing refugee flows. In view of this, the latest set of measures addresses four key areas: registration of identity, issuance of documents, document production and document control, and provides clear guidelines to Member States on how to tackle the phenomenon of travel document fraud in close cooperation the Commission and EU agencies.

Assessment of progress made on the implementation of the plan will be presented by the Commission to the European Parliament and Council in 2018.

“Ensuring the security of travel and identity documents is an important factor in the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Today’s action plan proposes concrete operational measures which will allow Member States to combat travel document fraud more effectively, contributing to improving the protection of our borders, ensuring our internal security and better managing migration,’’ said Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.

The measures are targeted at travel documents issued by EU members to EU citizens and third-country nationals which are used for identification and border crossing. Member States are fully responsible for the documents issued to establish identity.

Meanwhile, the Commission is expected to implement the ‘’fingerprint search’’ functionality in the Schengen Information System in 2017 as well as in collaboration with Member States and EU agencies increase training activities in new areas of document fraud.