Brussels Plan to Expand Europol Raises Privacy Fears

According to the European Data Protection Supervisor, the European Commission’s plan to significantly expand Europol’s powers to process police data could seriously infringe on people’s privacy, reports Politico.

The reform aims to transform Europol into a central system through which police forces across the EU could share and analyze large amounts of data using the latest technologies.

At the same time, the Commission wants to relax current rules requiring data to be categorized before determining whether Europol can legally process it.

However, European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski has warned that the new system could allow personal data on large numbers of people with no established links to criminal activity to be stored for an unspecified period.

The supervisory authority acknowledges the need to combat cross-border crime and terrorism more effectively, but has called for strong privacy safeguards and effective oversight of Europol.

(mja)