Europol working on a connected EU

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The director of Europol has called for an inter-connected European Union to help the fight against terrorism and organised crime, writes Mike Lowe.

Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Rob Wainwright said all member states should work towards being connected as it would be a "significant tool" in combating terrorism and organised crime.

Reflecting on experience from the UK, he said the power of bulk data collection and matching across different systems has already been very helpful during investigations.

"From my new position I've seen how the same is happening in other member states. What we need to do is replicate that at a European level, because by its very nature, terrorism and organised crime is a trans-national problem," he said.

"We have the legal mandate, we have the analysts, we have the IT capability to provide that service as an information hub for the EU. I'm busy trying to develop that concept and that capability."

Wainwright explained that 10 of the 27 member states have automatic data loaders that link Europol to their domestic systems for serious and organised crime. The UK is not one of the 10, he said, but that will soon change. The system being developed will operate on a more 21st century basis, Wainwright said, meaning more of Europol's high-grade analysis will reach the frontline.

The idea of inter-connected databases holding reams of personal data was met with caution by committee members. The committee asked Wainwright how Europol would address issues like data security and accuracy. In reply Wainwright said a high level of data security was a "very high part of our founding principles".

"We have a data protection regime now that is the strongest that I have seen in my professional career. We have an independent data protection authority; soon we will have independent data protection advisers. Citizens are allowed to access data and make requests. We have a unique operational network, which means we have built a network with all the 27 member states with very high levels of data security," he explained.

Over the 15 years that Europol has been in existence aiding members states with criminal intelligence, Wainwright said it had not had a significant data security episode.

"So I would say our data security standards are as high as they could be in the EU and indeed higher than any other organisation operating in the EU," he said.

"This is an essential part of our overall information management framework. This is what allows us to maintain the legitimacy for collecting so much personal data. Having gone through this tremendous process of creating this robust regime, I think it also allows me to make the case to increase our capabilities to collect and store the operational data in the first place."