France puts 78,000 security threats on vast police database

PARIS – France has flagged more than 78,000 people as security threats in a database intended to let European police share information on the continent's most dangerous residents — more than all other European countries put together — according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

The data has led to questions about whether the system is being misused, with different countries applying different criteria.

A German parliamentarian, Andrej Hunko, raised the alarm about the European database in a question to his country's Interior Ministry about "discreet checks." In 2017, more than 134,000 people were flagged for the secret international checks on people considered security threats.

To put the French number in perspective, the country's intelligence chief said late last year that 4,000 suspected extremists were being monitored as highly dangerous.