EU Data Protection Rules Applying to Law Enforcement Activities: Towards an Harmonised Legal Framework?
| DOI | 10.1177/203228441600700302 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Author | Céline C. Cocq |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Opinion |
New Journal of Eu ropean Crimina l Law, Vol. 7, Issue 3, 2016 263
OPINION
EU DATA PROTECTION RULES APPLYING TO
LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES
Towards an Harmonised Legal Framework?*
C C. C**
1. INTRODUCTION
For law enforcement purposes, competent national authorities gat her a signi cant
amount of information in order to prevent, investigate, detect a nd prosecute o ences.1
Despite their legitimate purposes, the collection and processing of such amount of
data has increased the risk of misuse of data. For this reason, a closer and updated
association between t he development of harmonised measures to ease the free ow of
data, on the one hand, and to ensure data protection standards, on the other, was
urgently needed in the EU.2
In 2012 and 2013, the European Commission tabled four proposa ls on this subject
aiming at facilitating the cooperation bet ween competent national authorities and
harmonising the national legislations at stake. In doing so, t he EU’s objective was to
adopt a coherent set of rules answering t wo main objectives stated in t he Directive
95/46/EC, namely to protect the funda mental rights, including the right to the
protection of personal data, and to g uarantee the free ow of personal data between
Member States .
* is p aper was nished on 2nd of March 2016. is pape r does not take into account any fur ther
developments.
** PhD candidate i n the Centre of Europea n Law of the Université Libre de Brux elles.
1 Franzisk a Boehm, Information Sharing a nd Data Protection in the Area of Freedom , Security and
Justice. Towards Harmonised Data Protection Principles for Information Exchange at EU-Level
(Verlag Berlin Heidelberg : Springer, 2012). Céline C. Cocq a nd Francesca Ga lli, “ e c atalysing
e ect of serious cr ime on the use of sur veillance tec hnologies for prevention and i nvestigation
purposes”, N.J.E.C.L ., vol. 4, 2013/3, 256–289.
2 Art.1, Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of t he Council of 24October 1995 on the
protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of
such data, O.J. L281/31; European Parliament, “M EPs tighten up rules to protect per sonal data in
the digita l era” Press release, 12March 2014. Available at w ww.europarl.europa.eu /news/en/news-
room/20140307IPR 38204/MEPs-t ighten-up-rules-to -protect-personal-d ata-in-the-dig ital-era
(access: 5Januar y 2016).
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