- applicant
means a person who has lodged an application for a visa, long-stay visa or residence permit;
- application form
means the harmonised application form for a Schengen Visa set out in Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 810/2009;
- designated authorities
means the Member State designated authorities as defined in point (26) of Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) 2017/2226, point (3a) of Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 767/2008, and point (21) of Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1240;”;
- designated authority
means an authority designated by a Member State pursuant to Article 22l(1) as responsible for the prevention, detection or investigation of terrorist offences or other serious criminal offences;
- Europol data
means personal data processed by Europol for the purpose referred to in point (a) of Article 18(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
- facial image
means digital image of the face;
- fingerprint data
means the VIS data relating to fingerprints;
- hit
means the existence of a correspondence established by an automated comparison of the personal data recorded in an application file of the VIS with the specific risk indicators referred to in Article 9j or with the personal data present in a record, file or alert registered in the VIS, in another EU information system as referred to in Article 9a or 22b (EU information systems), in Europol data or in Interpol databases queried by the VIS;
- identity data
means the data referred to in point (4)(a) and (aa) of Article 9 and point (d) of Article 22a(1);
- law enforcement
means the prevention, detection or investigation of terrorist offences or other serious criminal offences;
- long-stay visa
means an authorisation issued by a Member State as provided for in Article 18 of the Schengen Convention;
- residence permit
means a residence permit issued by a Member State in accordance with the uniform format laid down by Council Regulation (EC) No 1030/2002 and a document as referred to in point (16)(b) of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) 2016/399;
- serious criminal offence
means an offence which corresponds or is equivalent to one of the offences referred to in Article 2(2) of Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA, if it is punishable under national law by a custodial sentence or a detention order for a maximum period of at least three years.
- supervisory authorities
means the supervisory authority referred to in Article 51(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council and the supervisory authority referred to in Article 41 of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
- terrorist offence
means any of the offences under national law referred to in Articles 3 to 14 of Directive (EU) 2017/541 of the European Parliament and of the Council or, for the Member States which are not bound by that Directive, the offences under national law equivalent to one of those offences;
- visa authorities
means the authorities in each Member State which are responsible for examining and for taking decisions on visa applications or for taking decisions on whether to annul, revoke or extend visas, including the central visa authorities and the authorities responsible for issuing visas at the border;