Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1468112
10 NEWS 19.5.2022 THE European Parliament has voted to give Europol wide powers to collect and process data on individuals, including people not suspected of any crime, in a move that significantly widens the power of the European police agency. MEPs voted on 4 May to widen the man- date of Europol to collect personal data from tech companies, including telecoms and internet suppliers and social media firms, and to collect and analyse data from countries outside the European Union (EU). e proposals also give Europol the go- ahead to develop algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) systems capable of making automated decisions and developing pre- dictive policing models. e Parliament's draft regulation effec- tively overturns an order by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) in Jan- uary 2020 that required Europol to delete swathes of personal data it had collected and processed unlawfully. MEPs voted by 480 in favour of a signifi- cant expansion of Europol's role, with 142 against and 20 abstentions, in a move that will extend Europol's use of big data and artificial intelligence in criminal investiga- tions. e proposed regulation introduces measures to protect the privacy of individ- uals, including the appointment of a funda- mental rights officer at Europol and inde- pendent oversight by the EDPS. A 'massive, unchecked expansion' of powers But the move has been criticised by civ- il society groups, and some MEPs, which claim that it amounts to a "massive, un- checked expansion" of Europol's powers and could represent a first step on the road to creating a European version of GCHQ or the US National Security Agency. "Europol will be allowed to collect and share data left, right and centre, without much restriction or control," said Chloé Berthélémy, policy rights advisor at Eu- ropean Digital Rights (EDRi), a network of civil and human rights organisations in Europe. e draft legislation is in part a response to growing requests for Europol to analyse increasingly large and complex datasets to identify crimes in multiple countries inside and outside of the European Union. One example is an operation by the French and the Dutch police in 2020 to hack into the encrypted phone network EncroChat, sweeping up text messages from tens of thousands of phones along with details of users' contacts, notes, videos and voice messages, their pseudonyms, and unique phone identifiers. e proposed new legislation will expand the range of data Europol can retain and process beyond its existing mandate, which restricts the police agency to processing data only on individuals who had a clear and established link to criminality. e draft legislation will also allow Eu- ropol to share data – which could include IP addresses, URLs and the content of com- munications – with companies, including financial institutions and online platforms. European member states provide Eu- ropol with datasets, which are understood to include passenger flight records, mo- bile phone locations and datasets of open source data which might include social me- dia posts scraped from the internet. Europol will also be able to receive data from internet service and technology com- panies, such as Google and Facebook, in- cluding subscriber, traffic and content data that may be relevant to criminal investiga- tions. It will take on an additional role to assess the strategic risks posed by foreign inves- tors in emerging technologies in Europe, particularly those used by law enforcement and critical technology that could be used for terrorism Artificial intelligence built on 'dirty data' e draft law also gives Europol a man- date to research innovative technologies including AI technology and algorithmic decision-making, which, for example, could be used to predict which individuals are likely to be involved in criminal activity. Europol will also be able to legally train algorithms on datasets containing the personal information of individuals who are not suspected of any crime, in a move described by lawmakers as necessary to re- move bias from algorithms trained purely on criminal data. Critics point out that the MEPs' endorse- ment of Europol's use of automatic deci- sion-making is at odds with the European Parliament's endorsement of a ban on the use of algorithms for predictive policing. e Parliament agreed in October 2021 that the AI techniques used today are likely to have a discriminatory impact on racial groups and marginal communities, chil- dren, the elderly and women. Berthélémy, policy advisor at EDRi, said member states were not paying enough attention to the quality of data they were sending to Europol that will be used to train algorithms. "Europol will develop and use algorithms based on data received from national po- lice forces, but the nature and origin of these datasets have not been questioned enough," she said. "ey can be distorted by racial biases or come from corrupt and unlawful practic- es. is 'dirty data' will result in Europol's technologies overly targeting certain soci- oeconomic, racial or ethnic groups, ulti- mately reinforcing structural inequalities," she added. Safeguards and supervision not enough e draft regulation includes "enhanced safeguards, democratic oversight and ac- countability mechanisms", according to a report on the proposed regulation. ese are intended to ensure that the activities and tasks of Europol are carried out in full compliance with the Europe- an Charter on Fundamental Rights, stat- ed the report by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. is includes the rights to equality be- fore the law, to non-discrimination, and to an effective remedy before the competent national court. Processing of personal data "is limited to what is strictly necessary and proportion- ate and subject to clear conditions, strict requirements and effective supervision" by the European Data Protection Super- visor. However, civil society groups claim that the proposed data protection safeguards do not go far enough. EDRi advisor Berthélémy said the plans for Europol to internally appoint a funda- mental rights officer (FRO) to protect the privacy rights of data subjects, coupled with the limited powers of the EDPS, fall far short of the independent regulation the policing agency requires. e FRO model was taken from the Eu- ropean border and coast guard agency, Frontex, where it has already proved inef- fective, she said. "ey are just reproducing a mechanism that hasn't really proven to be efficient from another agency involved in human rights violations at the borders of the EU," said Berthélémy. Laure Baudrihaye-Gérard, legal director in Europe for the campaign group Fair Trials, said increased powers for Europol should come with an increase in oversight. "MEPs should have taken the chance to stand up for people's rights instead of pav- ing the way for an unaccountable model of policing that sends a worrying signal to all police forces in Europe," she said. ere are also concerns that there is a lack of adequate safeguards and transpar- ency over the quality and accuracy of data shared by member states with Europol. Unreliable data can be "laundered" through Europol, shared with member states and used as evidence in criminal proceedings, said Berthélémy. at would make it impossible to iden- tify errors or determine whether the evi- dence was collected legally by the member state that supplied it. "Europol is concluding more and more agreements with third countries, many of which have a bad record on human rights," she said. "We have called Europol a data laundering machine, because we are not sure how trustworthy the data is, wheth- er it's good quality and whether it's been validated by a judge or an independent ju- dicial authority." Berthélémy said Europol was also en- couraging private organisations to share data voluntarily, which it passes on to member states, in a move that could breach European Union treaties. Baudrihaye-Gérard said courts cannot exercise meaningful judicial oversight whether data collected and analysed by Europol is correct. Defence lawyers do not have access to the information they need to prepare a defence. "We are really facing a complete emptying of the right to a fair trial when Europol gears up to collect big data