Europol told to erase data on individuals not linked to crime

The EU’s data protection watchdog said Monday it had ordered Europol to delete data on individuals with no links to crime that did not respect safeguards on storing such information.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said it intervened after Europol — Europe’s law enforcement cooperation agency — failed to comply with a 2020 warning that it was retaining personal data not linked to crime.

It added that the data was being kept “for longer than necessary, contrary to the principles of data minimization and storage limitation.”

The order imposing a six-month limit for such data to be stored was given to Europol on January 3, it said.

“A six-month period for pre-analysis and filtering of large datasets should enable Europol to meet the operational demands of EU Member States relying on Europol… while minimizing the risks to individuals’ rights and freedoms,” EDPS head Wojciech Wiewiorowski said in a statement.

He added that Europol was granted a 12-month period to comply with the datasets already in its possession.

In response, Europol warned that the decision would hamper some of its most important investigations.

“The EDPS Decision will impact on Europol’s ability to analyze complex and large datasets at the request of EU law enforcement,” the agency said in a statement.

“This concerns data owned by Member States and operational partners and provided to Europol in connection with investigations supported within its mandate,” it said.

“It includes: terrorism, cybercrime, international drugs trafficking, and child abuse among others. Europol’s support frequently entails a period longer than six months as illustrated by some of its most prominent cases.”

The European Commission — the EU executive — “took note” of the EDPS decision but welcomed the 12-month derogation period, a spokeswoman told AFP.

“The data retention period should be sufficiently long to allow Europol to carry out its tasks effectively and provide its added value to the work of national law enforcement authorities, including in complex counter-terrorism cases,” the spokeswoman said.

She added that datasets given to The Hague-based Europol by EU member states had become bigger in recent years, and it often took time to sift through them to investigate crimes.

“For us it is clear that law enforcement cannot effectively fight crime if it cannot process large data. This data processing requires a considerable amount of time,” she said.