1. This Regulation establishes a ‘European Travel Information and Authorisation System’ (ETIAS) for third-country nationals exempt from the requirement to be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders (‘the visa requirement’) enabling consideration of whether the presence of those third-country nationals in the territory of the Member States would pose a security, illegal immigration or high epidemic risk. For this purpose, a travel authorisation and the conditions and procedures to issue or refuse it are introduced.
2. This Regulation lays down the conditions under which Member States’ designated authorities and Europol may consult data stored in the ETIAS Central System for the purposes of the prevention, detection and investigation of terrorist offences or of other serious criminal offences falling under their competence.
3. By storing identity data and travel document data in the common identity repository (CIR) established by Article 17(1) of Regulation (EU) 2019/817 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 1 ), ETIAS contributes to facilitating and assisting in the correct identification of persons registered in ETIAS under the conditions and for the purposes of Article 20 of that Regulation.