Since 1 July 2009, the EU police agency Europol has been operating a “Secure Information Exchange Network Application” (SIENA, Europol Review 2011). The tool is designed to enable “swift, secure and user-friendly communication” and exchange of operational and strategic crime-related information and intelligence between Europol, the Member States’ liaison bureaux, and third parties that have cooperation agreements with Europol (such as Eurojust and Interpol, but also Australia, Canada, Norway, Switzerland and the United States). According to the Europol website, 573 authorities and 4722 users from 28 Member States were connected last year. According to Europol, 14 third parties are connected directly and a further 19 indirectly. 34,472 new cases were initiated, 4% of them by third parties. The five biggest crime areas include “drugs” and “illegal immigration”. German authorities also access Europol’s information systems using SIENA (Bundestag printed paper 16/9987). Besides the Federal Criminal Police Office, the authorities in question include the Federal Police, the Customs Investigation Service and the public prosecution offices.