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1. The Commission shall determine the date from which the VIS is to start operations, when:

(a) the measures referred to in Article 45(2) have been adopted;

(b) the Commission has declared the successful completion of a comprehensive test of the VIS, which shall be conducted by the Commission together with Member States;

(c) following validation of technical arrangements, the Member States have notified the Commission that they have made the necessary technical and legal arrangements to collect and transmit the data referred to in Article 5(1) to the VIS for all applications in the first region determined according to paragraph 4, including arrangements for the collection and/or transmission of the data on behalf of another Member State.

2. The Commission shall inform the European Parliament of the results of the test carried out in accordance with paragraph 1(b).

3. In every other region, the Commission shall determine the date from which the transmission of the data in Article 5(1) becomes mandatory when Member States have notified the Commission that they have made the necessary technical and legal arrangements to collect and transmit the data referred to in Article 5(1) to the VIS for all applications in the region concerned, including arrangements for the collection and/or transmission of the data on behalf of another Member State. Before that date, each Member State may start operations in any of these regions, as soon as it has notified to the Commission that it has made the necessary technical and legal arrangements to collect and transmit at least the data referred to in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) to the VIS.

4. The regions referred to in paragraphs 1 and 3 shall be determined in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 49(3). The criteria for the determination of these regions shall be the risk of illegal immigration, threats to the internal security of the Member States and the feasibility of collecting biometrics from all locations in this region.

5. The Commission shall publish the dates for the start of operations in each region in the Official Journal of the European Union.

6. No Member State shall consult the data transmitted by other Member States to the VIS before it or another Member State representing this Member State starts entering data in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 3.