Division 1.1 Alphanumeric data

Most of the content stored in EES shall be extracted either from the Machine Readable Zone of the travel document or, where technically possible, electronically extracted from the electronic Machine Readable Travel Document (e-MRTD). It is therefore important that the information transmitted to the EES is compliant with the standards used for this, especially in the cases where it cannot be retrieved electronically and/or it has to be manually encoded by a border guard on the basis of data available in the Visual Inspection Zone. This applies only to the alphanumeric information that can be retrieved from the travel document's data page.

The following fields shall comply with the ICAO DOC9303 standard:

In addition, the following rules shall be respected:

1. (a)

   Article 16(2)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2017/2226 — border crossing point and authority that authorised the entry: the border crossing point is an authority of type Border Crossing Point. The list of authorities shall be maintained in accordance with the Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2017/2226.

2. (b)

   Article 16(2)(c)- A flag to identify that the entry was performed by a third-country national who:

   • is a member of the family of a Union citizen to whom Directive 2004/38/EC applies or of a national of a third country enjoying the right of free movement equivalent to that of Union citizens under an agreement between the Union and its Member States, on the one hand, and a third country, on the other; and

   • does not hold a residence card pursuant to Directive 2004/38/EC or a residence permit pursuant to Council Regulation (EC) No 1030/2002^f2;

3. (c)

   Article 16(2)(d) of Regulation (EU) 2017/2226 — short stay visa sticker number: the information shall be retrieved from VIS. In case the short stay visa sticker number has not changed since the previous entry or exit, the information already stored in EES can be re-used for the new entry or exit.

4. (d)

   Article 16(6) of Regulation (EU) 2017/2226 — A flag to identify if the third country national benefits from a national facilitation programme.