Recognising the importance of IT in European cooperation against serious crime, the EPOC (European Pool against Organised Crime) software was introduced in 2004 as the Eurojust Case Management System. It facilitates the secure storage of case-related personal data, the exchange of information amongst National Members and the analysis of that data. Moreover, it promotes compliance with Eurojust data protection rules.
This project is a further evolution of the EPOC software to allow the exchange of information with national case management systems and the promotion of use in the Member States.
Because of the complex and diverse nature of national IT application landscapes, it has become apparent that the EPOC software is very unlikely to replace existing national case management systems, but could act as a gateway for exchanging data between different Member States and with Eurojust.
EPOC would represent a key tool to facilitate interoperability of national systems and could become the international cooperation component of national systems.
The following issues need to be addressed to enable the efficient exchange of information with EPOC:
- Closing the gap arising from the lack of a standard data exchange format for the criminal justice domain;
- Establishing interoperability to connect multiple and incompatible case management systems/IT systems at a national level;
- Providing solutions to manage growth and change in the wider user community to ensure consistent development of the project’s results.
The objectives of the EPOC IV project are:
- Evolving the EPOC software to connect to diverse case management systems used at the national level;
- Promoting the use of the EPOC software in non-partner countries;
- Coordinating the further evolution of the system;
- Supporting the experimental exchange of general information.
Project partners for EPOC IV are Bulgaria, France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia, as well as Sirfin PA and Eurojust.
The project duration is 3 years, running between April 2009 and March 2012.
This project has been made possible with financial support from Criminal Justice Programme 2008, European Commission – Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security.
View/download EPOC IV project overview.
For further information, please contact us: EPOC IV Project