Security News > 2022 > January > Europol ordered to erase data on those not linked to crime
The European Data Protection Supervisor, an EU privacy and data protection independent supervisory authority, has ordered Europol to erase personal data on individuals that haven't been linked to criminal activity.
The decision follows an own-initiative inquiry started on April 30, 2019, regarding the EU police body's use of Big Data Analytics for personal data processing activities.
The EU data watchdog issued this order after admonishing Europol in September 2020 for storing large amounts of data on individuals that haven't been linked to criminal activity, putting their fundamental rights at risk.
"According to the Europol Regulation, Europol is only allowed to process data about individuals who have a clear, established link to criminal activity."
"Limiting Europol's processing of data avoids exposing other individuals who do not all into these categories, therefore minimising the risks associated with having their data processed in Europol's databases."
"Such collection and processing of data may amount to a huge volume of information, the precise content of which is often unknown to Europol until the moment it is analysed and extracted - a process often lasting years," European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski added in a press release published today.