Justice Minister Lars Barfoed (Cons) has sent the draft of an agreement between the United States and Denmark to the Parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee which would give American authorities access to Danish DNA and fingerprint registers.

The agreement comes despite the fact that the Data Protection Agency has previously warned that providing such information to the United States may not be safe, as it is not clear which control mechanisms are in place to ensure that only legal searches can be carried out.

Denmark has, however, been under pressure as the United States has warned that if Denmark does not agree to the system, Danish tourists will have to seek visas to visit America.

For its part, the United States hopes that access to the Danish registers will enable it to expose terrorists and other criminals.

In Denmark, police employees are sanctioned each year for unrightfully gaining access to registers. The Data Protection Agency says that abuse will also be possible if American police officer are able to search the Danish electronic registers.

The European Union has developed a similar arrangement to allow member countries to search each others’ registers. The Prüm cooperation, named after the German city of the same name, takes effect in mid-2011.

The Data Protection Agency says Denmark should wait to see how Prüm works before giving other countries access to domestic registers.