European Data Protection Supervisor criticizes Amended Europol Regulation
On June, 27, 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), an independent supervisory authority responsible for the monitoring of the processing of personal data by EU institutions and bodies, published a press release on its website criticizing the amended Europol Regulation that entered into force on June 28, 2022.
Unlike in the case for other EU institutions and bodies, Europol operates within an autonomous data protection framework included in the Europol Regulation. This means that only administrative personal data processed by Europol falls under the scope of the otherwise applicable regulation 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data.
In general, Europol is equipped with broad and far-reaching competencies to process personal data. This is because Europol works closely with several actors, such as other EU Agencies, national Law Enforcement Agencies, third countries, and Interpol.
In a journal article, Teresa Quintel points out that “(…) Europol could theoretically retain all data in one single repository and carry out data mining for different types of LE-purposes, which provides Europol with a remarkably broad mandate to process personal data”
Amendments to the Europol Regulation newly in force include the processing of large datasets as well as cooperation with private parties meaning that Europol can receive personal data from these third parties.
The EDPS also points to the fact that the amended regulation allows Europol to create and process large datasets of individuals who have no criminal link. This amendment contradicts an EDPS decision from December 2021 that ordered Europol to delete that data. As a consequence, this order is being made obsolete. The Kinast privacy ticker blogged about this matter earlier this year.
The press release further reads: “The EDPS regrets that the expansion of Europol’s mandate has not been compensated with strong data protection safeguards that would allow the effective supervision of the Agency’s new powers.”
