Europol is already for some time under scrutiny of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), but apparently Europol has not listened. On 10 January EDPS ordered Europol to erase data concerning individuals with no established link to a criminal activity, read the press release, the faq and the decision.

More information:

Earlier posts on this blog on Europol and EDPS:

• EDPS-opinion on the proposed amendments to the Europol Regulation, 14 March 2021
• Europol breaches fundamental rights and freedoms | EDPS, 28 October 2020
• Inspecting Europol’s processing of AML and CFT-data | EDPS, 10 October 2019

Addition 2 February 2022
The European Parliament (EP) announces on 2 February: “Europol reform: agreement between EP and Council to boost data analysis and safeguards“. According to EP’s press release Europol has to respect fundamental rights.

In the 2 February edition of its newsletter, European dataprotection organisation EDRi dives into the secret negotiations about Europol’s reform that would enable mass surveillance of people and discriminatory predictive policing, read Secret negotiations about Europol: the big rule of law scandal

EDRi, European Center For Not-for-Profit Law ECNL and other human rights organisations on 26 January published its letter regarding Europol, with the title “Civil society urges European policy-makers to seriously reconsider the expansion of Europol’s data processing capacities“.