Recital 18

(18) In order to perform effective asset-tracing investigations, and to swiftly respond to cross-border requests, asset recovery offices should have access to the information that is necessary to establish the existence, ownership or control of property that is or might become the object of a freezing or a confiscation order. Therefore, asset recovery offices should have immediate and direct access to relevant data such as real estate information, national citizenship and population registers, commercial databases and vehicle databases in addition to access to bank account information pursuant to Directive (EU) 2019/1153 of the European Parliament and of the Council (11) and to beneficial ownership information pursuant to Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council (12). Access and searches should be considered to be immediate and direct, inter alia, where the national authorities operating a register transmit information expeditiously by an automated mechanism to competent authorities, provided that no intermediary institution is able to interfere with the requested data or the information to be provided. Moreover, Member States should ensure that asset recovery offices have swift access, either immediately and directly or upon request, to other information which can be of value to identify relevant property, such as information on mortgages and loans, customs data or information on wire-transfers and account balances, as well as fiscal data, social security data and law enforcement information. As regards fiscal data, national social security data and law enforcement information, it should be possible for Member States to decide to give asset recovery offices access to such information on the basis of reasoned requests, and to enable the authorities holding such information to deny access to such information under certain conditions, in order to ensure the integrity of investigations, the confidentiality of information provided by another Member State or third country as well as the proportionality of the requests for information in relation to the legitimate interests of a natural or legal person. Access to information should be subject to specific safeguards that prevent the misuse of access rights. Such safeguards complement the requirements to provide for logs of access and search activities pursuant to Article 25 of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council (13). Granting access to that information does not prevent Member States from making access subject to procedural safeguards as established under national law while taking due account of the need for asset recovery offices to be able to swiftly reply to cross-border requests. The implementation of procedural safeguards should not affect the ability of asset recovery offices to respond to requests from other Member States, especially in the case of urgent requests.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-09-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.