On Monday 19 November, the Council agreed to strengthen the Schengen Information System (SIS). The reinforced SIS will incorporate, among others, the following improvements: new alerts on criminals and returns decisions, greater vigilance for terrorist offences, stronger provisions on missing children and people in need, enforcement of entry bans, stronger data protection rules, improved interoperability and enhanced access for EU agencies such as FRONTEX or Europol to the SIS. Welcoming the adoption, Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King said: “From preventing terror attacks to missing children, the SIS is the centrepiece of information exchange in the EU, with more than 200,000 criminals tracked down and 50,000 arrests made underlining its importance to cross-border security cooperation. I welcome today’s adoption of a strengthened mandate to make the SIS even more effective”. The new functionalities in the SIS will be implemented by the EU-Lisa Agency, to be fully operational within 3 years (i.e. 2021).