Europol and Austria conclude agreement to host Europol back-up data centre

Today in Vienna, Dr Alois Schittengruber, Head of the Legal Department of the Austrian Federal Chancellery, and Mr Eugenio Orlandi, Deputy Director of Europol, signed an agreement whereby the Federal Republic of Austria will host Europol’s back-up data centre in a government installation. The agreement will last 10 years and can be extended further.

The establishment of this back-up data centre in Austria, which is planned to become operational in 2012, means that Europol will be able to provide continuity of its critical IT-enabled services to the competent authorities in EU Member States, if faced with the situation where its primary data centre in The Hague is completely unavailable for a prolonged period of time. In the back-up data centre, Europol will set up an additional configuration of its technical infrastructure, data and applications that would allow for resumption of critical operations in a matter of hours should there be a major disaster at its primary site.

The facilities offered by Austria provide state-of-the-art resilience mechanisms and a high security environment which are essential to adequately host and protect the sensitive information processed by Europol.

Europol is the European law enforcement agency and delivers a unique set of operational services for the European Union, acting as the support centre for law enforcement operations, centre for law enforcement expertise and a criminal information hub. Europol’s operational control centre is responsible for coordinating the exchange of criminal intelligence between EU law enforcement agencies and other countries that have agreements with Europol.