The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), an EU privacy and data protection independent supervisory authority, has ordered Europol to erase personal data on individuals that haven't been linked to criminal activity.
According to the EDPS, the watchdog considers personal data any identification number, location data, or online identifier associated with an individual's physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity.
Europol was notified of
this order one week ago, on January 3, 2022.
The decision follows an own-initiative inquiry started on April 30, 2019, regarding the EU police body's use of Big Data Analytics for personal data processing activities.
The EU data watchdog issued this order after admonishing Europol in September 2020 for storing large amounts of data on individuals that haven't been linked to criminal activity, putting their fundamental rights at risk.
"The EDPS' Decision is about protecting individuals whose personal data is included in datasets transferred to Europol by EU Member States' law enforcement authorities," said the EDPS today [
PDF].
"According to the Europol Regulation, Europol is only allowed to process data about individuals who have a clear, established link to criminal activity (e.g. suspect,witness, etc).
"Limiting Europol's processing of data avoids exposing other individuals who do not all into these categories, therefore minimising the risks associated with having their data processed in Europol's databases."
