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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has shown serious concerns in his opinion on the Commission's new Council Framework Decision proposal regarding the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.
Although appreciative of the German presidency's efforts, Peter Hustinx advised the Council against adopting the proposal considering it failed to provide appropriate data protection. EDPS believes that a Framework Decision on the protection of personal data in the third pillar is essential in the development of an area of freedom, security and justice and that "the growing importance of the police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters as well as the actions stemming from the Hague Programme have highlighted the necessity of common standards in the protection of personal data in the third pillar". At the same time, Hustinx underlines that some of the aspects of the proposal are not in agreement with the EU Treaty and some are even below the standards of the Council of Europe Convention 108 of 1981.
"We need to ensure high standards to guarantee both the citizens rights and the efficiency in police and judicial cooperation. Unfortunately, this proposal does not meet the expectations" stated the EDPS.
Two important issues Hustinx opposes to are the extension of the proposal scope to third pillar data processing by Europol and Eurojust and the creation of a new joint supervisory authority before including adequate protection measures for the citizens' data when such data are exchanged between member states and third parties.
In his opinion, the lack of proper and broad level of data protection will make information exchanges "subject to different national "rules of origin" and "double standards" that strongly affect efficiency in law enforcement cooperation while not improving the protection of personal data".
The EDPS considers some essential data protection provisions have been taken out from the previous text thus weakening the level of protection of citizens and also finds the legislative quality of the text as unsatisfactory. "Apart from the choice of legal instrument, several provisions do not fulfil the requirements of the common guidelines for the quality of drafting of Community legislation. In particular, the text is not drafted clearly, simply and precisely, which makes it difficult for the citizens to identify their rights and obligations unambiguously".
Two of the aspects that are not properly covered by the proposal are the limitation of the further purposes for which personal data may be processed, and the lack of specific and strict conditions for the data exchanges with non-law enforcement authorities.
The opinion shows there are no adequate provisions related to the quality of data. There are no provisions regarding the differentiation of data categories based on the accuracy degree and reliability, no distinction between data based on facts and data based on personal opinions or assessment. "The lack of such a common requirement could actually undermine the data being exchanged between police authorities as they will not be able to ascertain whether the data can be construed as "evidence", "fact", "hard intelligence" or "soft intelligence". This could have the consequence of not only hampering security operations and intelligence."
The privacy watchdog especially objects to the way of handling the exchange of DNA data and urges on caution regarding the introduction of biometric data in passports. He remarked that, in the fight against crime, data protection adequate measures had very often been disregarded for the sake of security.
Third pillar data protection: EDPS strongly advises Council not to adopt
current proposal without significant improvements (30.04.07)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
Third opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the Proposal for
a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in
the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters
(27.04.2007)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
EU Data Protection Supervisor warns against networking police databases
(3.05.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/89219/