Tag: EDPS

Europol’s criticism of EDPS’ order limiting data collection practices

13. January 2022

Shortly after the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) had notified EU’s Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) of the order restricting data collection practices, the agency strongly objected. We have already reported on the decision setting a retention period of six months for all datasets submitted to the agency.

Europol is concerned that the order will harm investigations, as the agency typically needs to retain data for longer than six months to effectively fight against evils such as terrorism and child abuse. It was precisely the past practices that also enabled the EU arresting numerous of drug traffickers and suspected criminals.

EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, agreed with the concern, arguing that it would jeopardize criminal investigations if law enforcement agencies have to start disposing of the data they have collected. She stated that

the potential risk of the decision is huge. If a member state or national police cannot use Europol to help with the analysis of big data … then they will be blind because a lot of national police forces do not have the capacity to deal with this big data.

According to critical comment, law enforcement and security agencies should be given better access to citizens’ data. Johansson advocates this as well. Europol’s powers to process large datasets could soon be strengthened as part of a reform of its mandate. However, this intention also meets with criticism, as Chloé Berthélémy of the European Digital Rights NGO expresses:

The EDPS has taken a critical step today to finally end Europol’s unlawful processing of data … Unfortunately, the reform of Europol to be adopted soon … will reverse all these efforts as it is set to legalize the very same practices that undermine data protection and fair trial rights.

Europol ordered to delete data of individuals with no criminal link

12. January 2022

On January 3rd, 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) notified the EU’s Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) of an order to delete data of individuals who have not been linked to a crime or a criminal activity. This decision, dated December 21st, 2021, marks the conclusion of EDPS’ investigation launched in 2019.

The own-initiative inquiry concerned Europol’s processing of personal data in large datasets for the purpose of strategic and operational analysis (referred to as Europol’s Big Data Challenge). The investigation revealed non-compliance with the data protection rules laid down in the Europol Regulation (ER), especially the principles of data minimization (Article 28 (1) (c) ER) and data retention (Article 28 (1) (e) ER).

Article 18 (2) (b), (c), (5) and Annex II. B. (1), (3) ER limit the categories of data subjects about whom Europol can process data for the aforementioned purposes to ‘suspects’, ‘potential future criminals’, ‘contacts and associates’, ‘victims’, ‘witnesses’ and ‘informants’. To meet this requirement, large datasets must undergo a process of filtering and extraction called Data Subject Categorization (DSC). Therefore, processing of datasets lacking the DSC should be limited to the shortest time necessary to materially proceed to such categorization. This is important to ensure that processing of data of persons, whose link to crimes has not been established, ceases as soon as possible. It is justified by the fact that in particular the continued storage poses a risk to fundamental rights of these individuals.

EDPS then admonished Europol and urged it to take all necessary and appropriate measures to mitigate the risks for individuals arising from such data processing activities. For this purpose, Europol was also advised to establish an action plan and inform EDPS thereof.

Although Europol has taken some action since then, it has not established an appropriate retention period for the datasets without DSC. As a consequence, the EDPS has decided to impose a retention period of 6 months for all datasets submitted to Europol by EU Member States as of January 4th, 2022, which should allow the filtering and extraction of the permitted personal data. Datasets that do not undergo DSC during this period must be deleted. The EDPS has also given Europol a period of 12 months to comply with the decision for the datasets previously received. Should this period elapse before the datasets undergo DSC, they must be deleted as well.

EDPS and the EDPB call for a tightening of the EU draft legislation on the regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

26. July 2021

In a joint statement, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) call for a general ban on the use of artificial intelligence for the automated recognition of human characteristics in publicly accessible spaces. This refers to surveillance technologies that recognise faces, human gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioral signals. In addition to the AI-supported recognition of human characteristics in public spaces, the EDPS and EPDB also call for a ban of AI systems using biometrics to categorize individuals into clusters based on ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation, or other grounds on which discrimination is prohibited under Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. With the exception of individual applications in the medical field, EDPS and the EDPB are also calling for a ban on AI for sentiment recognition.

In April, the EU Commission presented a first draft law on the regulation of AI applications. The draft explicitly excluded the area of international law enforcement cooperation. The EDPS and EDPB expressed “concern” about the exclusion of international law enforcement cooperation from the scope of the draft. The draft is based on a categorisation of different AI applications into different types of risk, which are to be regulated to different degrees depending on the level of risk to the fundamental rights. In principle, the EDPS and EDPB support this approach and the fact that the EU is addressing the issue in general. However, they call for this concept of fundamental rights risk to be adapted to the EU data protection framework.

Andrea Jelinek, EDPB Chair, and Wojciech Wiewiórowski, of the EDPS, are quoted:

Deploying remote biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces means the end of anonymity in those places. Applications such as live facial recognition interfere with fundamental rights and freedoms to such an extent that they may call into question the essence of these rights and freedoms.

The EDPS and EDPB explicitly support, that the draft provides for national data protection authorities to become competent supervisory authorities for the application of the new regulation and explicitly welcome, that the EDPS is intended to be the competent authority and the market surveillance authority for the supervision of the Union institutions, agencies and bodies. The idea that the Commission also gives itself a predominant role in the “European Artificial Intelligence Board” is questioned by the EU data protection authorities. “This contradicts the need for a European AI Board that is independent of political influence”. They call for the board to be given more autonomy, to ensure its independence.

Worldwide there is great resistance against the use of biometric surveillance systems in public spaces. A large global alliance of 175 civil society organisations, academics and activists is calling for a ban on biometric surveillance in public spaces. The concern is that the potential for abuse of these technologies is too great and the consequences too severe. For example, the BBC reports that China is testing a camera system on Uighurs in Xinjiang that uses AI and facial recognition to detect emotional states. This system is supposed to serve as a kind of modern lie detector and be used in criminal proceedings, for example.

EDPS investigating EU institutions’ use of US cloud services

2. June 2021

The European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”) announced on May 27th, 2021, that it has opened an investigation into the use of Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS by EU institutions and has begun an audit of the European Commission’s use of Microsoft Office 365. The EDPS is the EU.s data protection authority.

The EDPS is the independent supervisory authority responsible for monitoring the processing of personal data by EU institutions and bodies.

Both investigations are a consequence of the Schrems II ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) on June 16th, 2020 (please see our blog post). The CJEU ruled that U.S. its intense surveillance practices do not comply with the GDPR’s data protection standards. Accordingly, personal data of EU citizens may not be processed in the U.S. solely on the basis of the protection provided by so-called standard contractual clauses. Controllers, in cooperation with data importers, must examine and adapt additional measures on a case-by-case basis to ensure a level of data protection equivalent to the GDPR.

The investigations will examine whether EU institutions are complying with data protection rules and the Schrems II ruling.

Wojciech Wiewiórowski, EDPS head, is quoted in the EDPS announcement:

I am aware that the “Cloud II contracts” were signed in early 2020 before the “Schrems II” judgement and that both Amazon and Microsoft have announced new measures with the aim to align themselves with the judgement. Nevertheless, these announced measures may not be sufficient to ensure full compliance with EU data protection law and hence the need to investigate this properly.

If the EDPS finds that Cloud II contracts do not comply with the Schrems II ruling, this could force EU institutions to switch to alternative cloud providers based in the EU in the future, as the EDPS has stated that he wants EU institutions to lead by example.

EDPS considers Privacy Shield replacement unlikely for a while

18. December 2020

The data transfer agreements between the EU and the USA, namely Safe Harbor and its successor Privacy Shield, have suffered a hard fate for years. Both have been declared invalid by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in the course of proceedings initiated by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems against Facebook. In either case, the court came to the conclusion that the agreements did not meet the requirements to guarantee equivalent data protection standards and thus violated Europeans’ fundamental rights due to data transfer to US law enforcement agencies enabled by US surveillance laws.

The judgement marking the end of the EU-US Privacy Shield (“Schrems II”) has a huge impact on EU companies doing business with the USA, which are now expected to rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs). However, the CJEU tightened the requirements for the SCCs. When using them in the future, companies have to determine whether there is an adequate level of data protection in the third country. Therefore, in particular cases, there may need to be taken additional measures to ensure a level of protection that is essentially the same as in the EU.

Despite this, companies were hoping for a new transatlantic data transfer pact. Though, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Wojciech Wiewiórowski expressed doubts on an agreement in the near future:

I don’t expect a new solution instead of Privacy Shield in the space of weeks, and probably not even months, and so we have to be ready that the system without a Privacy Shield like solution will last for a while.

He justified his skepticism with the incoming Biden administration, since it may have other priorities than possible changes in the American national security laws. An agreement upon a new data transfer mechanism would admittedly depend on leveling US national security laws with EU fundamental rights.

With that in mind, the EU does not remain inactive. It is also trying to devise different ways to maintain its data transfers with the rest of the world. In this regard, the EDPS appreciated European Commission’s proposed revisions to SCCs, which take into consideration the provisions laid down in CJEU’s judgement “Schrems II”.

The proposed Standard Contractual Clauses look very promising and they are already introducing many thoughts given by the data protection authorities.

EDPS publishes opinion on future EU-UK partnership

3. March 2020

On 24 February 2020, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) published an opinion on the opening of negotiations for the future partnership between the EU and the UK with regards to personal data protection.

In his opinion, the EDPS points out the importance of commitments to fully respect fundamental rights in the future envisaged comprehensive partnership. Especially with regards to the protection of personal data, the partnership shall uphold the high protection level of the EU’s personal data rules.

With respect to the transfer of personal data, the EDPS further expresses support for the EU Commission’s recommendation to work towards the adoption of adequacy decisions for the UK if the relevant conditions are met. However, the Commission must ensure that the UK is not lowering its data protection standard below the EU standard after the Brexit transition period. Lastly, the EDPS recommends the EU Institutions to also prepare for a potential scenario in which no adequacy decisions exist by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020.

EDPS investigates into contractual agreements between EU institutions and Microsoft

10. April 2019

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is the supervisory authority for all EU institutions and therefore responsible for their compliance with data protection laws. It is currently investigating the compliance of contractual agreements between EU institutions and Microsoft as the different institutions use Microsoft products and services to conduct their day-to-day businesses including the processing of huge amounts of personal data.

The EDPS refers to a Data Processing Impact Assessment carried out last November by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security (we reported) in which they concluded that Microsoft collects and stores personal data of Office users on a large scale without informing them.

Wojciech Wiewiórowski, Assistant EDPS, said: “New data protection rules for the EU institutions and bodies came into force on 11 December 2018. Regulation 2018/1725 introduced significant changes to the rules governing outsourcing. Contractors now have direct responsibilities when it comes to ensuring compliance. However, when relying on third parties to provide services, the EU institutions remain accountable for any data processing carried out on their behalf. They also have a duty to ensure that any contractual arrangements respect the new rules and to identify and mitigate any risks. It is with this in mind that the contractual relationship between the EU institutions and Microsoft is now under EDPS scrutiny.”

The investigation should reveal which products and systems are used right now and whether the existing contractual agreements are compliant with current Data Protection Laws, especially the GDPR.

Category: EU · GDPR · General
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Accountability initiative by the EDPS: achieving compliance with the GDPR

8. June 2016

The EDPS announced yesterday the launch of a new initiative that may help EU institutions, public bodies and private organizations to be compliant and prepare for the GDPR. This initiative relates to the accountability principle, which is explicitly mentioned in the GDPR. Accountability regarding the processing of personal data means:

  • Implementing policies within the organization in order to achieve transparency
  • Training employees and persons within the organization with regard to the implementation of the policies
  • Monitoring the implementation of the policies
  • Establishing procedures in order to identify incompliances and act against data breaches

The EDPS states that the accountability principle involves a culture change within organizations and means the promotion of sustainable data processing. This means that organizations should assess the fairness and legality of complex data processing operations. This involve that both, public bodies and private organizations, should develop a risk management strategy that addresses their specific needs, so that they are compliant with the GDPR upon its entry into force in May 2018.

This initiative has been firstly implemented at the EDPS institution itself by using questionnaires addressed to the Supervisors, the Director, the staff responsible for processing operations and the DPO. The implemented actions were also documented and followed up on a regular basis. The questions aimed at ensuring a control over the processing of personal data and the lawfulness of the processing.

European Data Protection Supervisor issues opinion on EU-U.S. Privacy Shield

1. June 2016

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli, issued this week his opinion on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The EDPS is an independent EU institution created in 2004 that assesses EU institutions on policies and legislation related to privacy and data protection and cooperates with authorities in these matters.

The EDPS emphasized on the following key aspects related to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield:

  • The current draft is not solid enough and improvements should be made in order to withstand scrutiny before the ECJ.
  • The Privacy Shield should offer a long-term solution regarding international data transfers to the U.S.
  • The protection provided by the Privacy Shield should ensure the rights to redress, transparency, data privacy and oversight.
  • It should also prevent from indiscriminate surveillance by American authorities.
  • The draft should comply with the GDPR, including international data transfers.
  • International companies should be aware of and comply with their obligations on privacy and data protection issues.

To sum up, the Privacy Shield should offer an equivalent data protection level to that existing in the EU.

Category: EU · General
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