Privacy rights under threat from Europol proposal, claims MEP

Date: 13/06/02

By Peter Chapman

A LEAKED document from crime agency Europol reveals that EU chiefs plan to strike against data privacy, an MEP claims.

Italian Radical Marco Cappato has published details of a secret Europol meeting on his party's website (http://www.radicalparty.org/europol/europol.pdf). It indicates that police chiefs want the right to see swathes of personal information to fight terrorism and organised crime.

In a 'proposal for common European law enforcement viewpoint on data retention', Europol suggests that service providers should keep data detailing access to email servers and 'chat rooms', as well as time of connection, user ID and passwords. Telecom operators are urged to retain details of even unsuccessful calls, the address to which bills are sent, and the name and date of birth of subscribers. Similar data would be kept for calls over mobile and satellite networks.

Cappato lost a fierce debate over the issue of data retention in the European Parliament earlier this month when MEPs discussed changes to a draft directive on privacy over electronic communications systems. The 31-year-old deputy warned his colleagues that they risked 'giving a political green light' to agencies to squeeze citizens' rights to privacy.

Disclosure of Europol's agenda proved that officials were already working towards establishing sweeping pan-EU powers to snoop, he said, adding: 'It seems quite clear that everything is converging to this data retention mandatory power.'

A spokesman for Europol denied the organisation was pursuing a secret agenda - or police forces were intent on denying the right to privacy: 'That is absolutely wrong. There is absolutely nothing for Europol to hide. There was a meeting - and this is just a document. The discussion is going on.'

See Police facing 'severe' obstacles to fighting crime - Page 6