Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission
11.5.2012
The Commission does not have figures regarding private companies providing software or other services to United States (US) law enforcement authorities.
The Commission considers, however, that when a US government authority realises that necessary information is outside its jurisdiction, the appropriate channel to obtain the data should be the legal cooperation mechanisms that are in place with European Union (EU) Member States where those data are located. Such instruments are, among others, the bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance agreements and, more specifically, the EU‑US Mutual Legal Assistance agreement.
The Commission also believes that it is of the utmost importance to underpin the EU‑US law enforcement cooperation with a general and coherent data protection legal framework, with enforceable data protection rights and judicial redress for every individual, which the Commission is currently negotiating, upon receiving a mandate from the Council of Ministers[1].
The secure information exchange system (SIENA) as well as the Europol Information System (EIS) are in-house developed applications[2]. Europol is not a client of Orgnet.com[3]. The Commission does not intend to broaden Europol's mandate, but rather to help it improve its intelligence picture whilst ensuring compliance with the data protection requirements.
Without prejudice to the powers of the Commission as guardian of the Treaties, the supervision and enforcement of data protection legislation including to investigate possible cases of non-compliance or to impose penalties to data controllers falls under the competence of national authorities, in particular, data protection supervisory authorities in the Member States. The Commission is confident that such authorities will take the necessary measures in cases falling under their jurisdiction and when EU data protection law is applicable.
- [1] http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/jha/118183.pdf
- [2] The main applications used for the operational work are provided by the following companies: I2 for analysis and data mining software, Themis for text mining packages and Open text for the Document Management System.
- [3] Orgnet.com only provided introductory training to some Europol analysts in November 2006.
OJ C 111 E, 18/04/2013