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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has issued its report for 2006 that includes activities and events as well as the main trends of the past year and draws conclusions related to complaints, developments in security, justice, freedom and new technologies with possible impact on personal data protection.

One of the conclusions of the report is that while the number of complaints has increased, it is still low and only 20% of the complaints made in 2006 were valid.

"A large majority of the complaints received continued to fall outside of the supervisory competences of the EDPS, for instance because they dealt exclusively with processing of personal data on the level of the member states, where national Data Protection Authorities are competent," said the report.

The report shows that data protection continues to be a significant challenge and more work is needed to make data protection rules and practices be implemented in the European laws and "to develop a data protection culture as part of good governance".

It also states concern regarding the increasing tendency of authorities to establish central databases and large scale IT systems. According to EDPS, state databases continuously exceed their function, not always to the benefit of people and there is "the risk of illegitimate use" of these databases. "The EDPS has observed a trend in that once a database has been established, access to it is extended to more authorities, for other purposes than those for which it was set up."

He believes that the cooperation between the police forces and the judiciary systems have been developed without a proper protection for the citizens' data protection rights.

European Data Protection Supervisor - Annual Report 2006 - Executive Summary
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...

European Data Protection Supervisor- Annual Report 2006
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...

Most complaints to EU privacy watchdog are misdirected (2.05.2007)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8015