Stop Europol’s illegal bulk data collection!

For years, the EU police authority Europol has been collecting massive amounts of data without any legal basis. Now Europe’s top data protection official Wojciech Wiewiórowski is taking action against the police agency, according to an order published today.

As a substitute member of Europol’s supervisory body JPSG, MEP Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party) comments:

“According to the European Data Protection Supervisor, Europol has been illegally storing for years data on non-suspects transmitted by national intervention authorities. These are vast amounts of data (cell-mast data, and passenger lists) on people who are in no way connected to criminal activities. As a consequence, innocent citizens run the risk of being wrongfully suspected of having committed a crime. The six-month retention period imposed by the authority limits this risk. However, the new Europol regulation seeks to simply legalise these illegal practices, which is scandalous.”