Security News > 2022 > September > Privacy watchdog steps up fight against Europol's hoarding of personal data

An EU watchdog says rules that allow Europol cops to retain personal data on individuals with no links to criminal activity go against Europe's own data privacy protections, not to mention undermining the regulator's powers and role.

The European Data Protection Supervisor has asked Europe's top court to toss out two amendments to the Europol Regulation that took effect on June 28 enabling this data hoarding by the police.

In court documents filed this month, EDPS claimed the new provisions retroactively legalize Europol's practice of storing personal data on people not linked to criminal activity - a practice the watchdog has sanctioned the law enforcement agency for in the past, and in January ordered Europol to delete such information.

The regulator's order to delete people's data stemmed from an investigation that took place between April 2019 and September 2020, and concluded Europol harvested and retained too much information on too many individuals for far too long.

"Firstly, to protect legal certainty for individuals in the highly sensitive field of law enforcement, where the processing of personal data implies risk for data subjects," Wiewiorowski said in a statement on Thursday.

"Secondly, to make sure that the EU legislator cannot unduly 'move the goalposts' in the area of privacy and data protection, where the independent character of the exercise of a supervisory authority's enforcement powers requires legal certainty of the rules being enforced," he added.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/europol_data_privacy_legal_edps/