Mr. Finbarr Heslin:

It is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation based in Brussels. It is not all companies that are involved. Some are government bodies. It depends on the legislation in each European country. There are different models. It is a government database in France, which is a member of Europetnet. In Ireland, the four registered databases approved by the Department have to be a member of Europetnet. There are a number of individual, private databases in Germany. Each country has different legislation underpinning mandatory chipping. Europetnet is usually the central clearing system. It is important that Europetnet does not store GDPR-sensitive data. It just tells us where data are stored. Anybody, including a member of the public, can log on to Europetnet and put in a chip number, and it will tell them where it is stored. It does not give any details of ownership, but tells people which database they should be in contact with.