Interesting questions which sound like a competitor wants to troll the sTesta system. I wonder why the Commission awarded the contract to a non-European company.
Question for written answer E-4470/2010 to the Commission Rule 117
Carlos Coelho (PPE)
Subject: s-TESTA network
The s-TESTA network (= secure Trans-European Services for Telematics between Administrations) provides a generic infrastructure for secure trans-European information exchange between national and European administrations.
At present, this ‘secured’ communication network, which falls under the responsibility of the Commission, appears to have more than 30 applications. The EURODAC system operates within the s-TESTA network, as will the SIS II and VIS information systems.
This network will accordingly be vitally important to in the Schengen area, since it is impossible to have an area without internal borders unless the communication network for the Schengen Information System and the related SIRENE interfaces operates continuously and in a manner making for a high degree of security.
Taking into account the importance and the growing role of the s-TESTA network within the EU,
1. Is it true that personal data are transmitted via the network?
2. The Commission has hired a private consortium – Orange Business Services and HP – to manage the network. Will the most stringent security requirements be met, bearing in mind that the consortium operates out of an industrial suburb of Bratislava and is based on the second floor of a building belonging to a local private owner where there are other private companies working on the other floors and there is no form of diplomatic protection?
3. Is it true that technicians working for the consortium can access private data being transmitted via the communication network?
4. Is it true that the consortium also has offices in Cairo and that its employees are even issued with a handbook giving the addresses of all the network’s component systems and the corresponding access points?
Sköne Oke 
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