EU police privacy measures 'welcome but weak'

3.07.22pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 5th Oct 2005

Commenting on the European Commission proposal just adopted for rules on protection of personal data exchanged by EU law enforcement agencies, Liberal Democrat European justice spokeswoman Sarah Ludford said:

"There is an urgent need for cross-border access police access to databases to be framed by privacy rules, instead of the present free-for-all. So, while 10 years overdue, this proposed measure is strongly to be welcomed."

"But the proposed measure still has whopping loopholes which MEPs must seek to close off: access by security and intelligence services is not constrained; Member States can opt out at their own discretion; and if we go by the record on air passenger data, the checks on exchange with third countries like Russia or the US will be a dead letter."

"In addition, the scope of the measure is so wide that people could be dragged into the net of data exchange even if they are just a contact or associate of a potential witness!"

Note:

For 10 years there has been a data protection regime for the business sector, and the European Parliament has been urging for long time that we needed similar protection in the growing area of cross-border cooperation on crime and terrorism. Member States want police to be able to access databases set up not only specifically for law enforcement purposes (eg police records, DNA) , but also immigration and telecoms ones.