EU watchdog orders Europol to delete personal data unrelated to crimes

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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) instructed the law enforcement agency Europol to delete the personal data of individuals who have no established link with criminal activity, concluding an inquiry started in April 2019.

“It is extremely important that Law Enforcement Agencies, in pursuing effective big data-driven models, will find a way to obey to these [data protection] principles while still meeting the operational demands of EU Member States,” Paolo Balboni, privacy professor at Maastricht University, told EURACTIV.