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A computerised image-archiving system to help combat illegal immigration and organised crime
Council Joint Action 98/700/JHA of 3 December 1998 adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning the setting up of a European Image-Archiving System (FADO).
FADO is a European image-archiving system and secure collaboration platform for the purpose of exchanging information on genuine and on false documents.
The system's database contains amongst others:
Expert FADO is currently available to document experts in 30 FADO partner states: in all Member States of the European Union (EU) and in Iceland, Norway and in Switzerland. Part of the information shared by document experts in the classified, restricted system FADO is made publicly available, via the PRADO site, which is a sub-page of the EU Council homepage. The steering committee in the Council of the European Union is the Working Party on Frontiers in the formation of False Documents Experts.
FADO is currently available in 22 official languages of the European Union. Documents are introduced by document experts in any of the languages and the standardized descriptions are translated automatically; thus, documents are immediately available in all supported languages. Additional free text information contained is translated later on by specialized linguists of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union.
The proliferation of genuine and false documents means that frequent updating is essential. Ever more sophisticated techniques are being used to produce both genuine documents and forgeries. A computerised system with restricted access has therefore been built that enables fast and secure information exchange between the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union and between document experts in the European Union member states, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
Part of the information contained in Expert FADO is available to control authorities and to other governmental agencies in FADO partner countries and to Frontex, via the sub-system iFADO - intranet False and Authentic Documents Online.
A further reduced part of the information contained in Expert FADO is selected by European document experts to be made available to the general public by the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union on the site PRADO - Public Register of Travel and Identity Documents Online.