Some of the procedures that EU institutions put in place pose risks to the data protection rights and freedoms of individuals.
Under the old legal framework (Regulation (EC) 45/2001), EU institutions were obliged to notify us before putting in place risky data processing operations.
In general, our prior checking Opinions were public.
Regulation 2018/1725 builds on the old Regulation and mirrors the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) that applies to most organisations processing personal data in the Member States. Compared to the previous rules, Regulation 2018/1725 aligns documentation obligations more closely to the risks caused by processing personal data. This means for example that the documentation requirements for a EUI’s newsletter subscription will be lower than for a system using ‘intelligent CCTV’ covering publicly accessible space or a database profiling travellers for screening purposes.
Depending on the process at hand, EU institutions processing personal data ('controllers') may not have to go through all the steps below (these steps are described in the Accountability on the ground toolkit):
• Generate basic documentation (called ‘records’) for all processes;
• Check if the process is likely to result in high risks to the people whose data are processed and consult the DPO if it appears to do so;
• If the EU institution needs to do a data protection impact assessment (DPIA), they analyse those risks in more detail and develop specific safeguards/controls to manage them;
• If the results of the DPIA still indicate high residual data protection risks, the EU institution has to file a prior consultation with the EDPS (see Articles 40 and 90 of Regulation 2018/1725 respectively for administrative and operational personal data).
Article 39 of Regulation 2016/794 on Europol provides for an ad hoc prior consultation mechanism for new type of processing of operational data, namely data processed by Europol to support the Member States in preventing and combating serious crime and terrorism. Similarly, Article 72 of Regulation 2017/1939 on the European Public Prosecutor Office (EPPO) provides a specific prior consultation mechanism for the processing of operational data, namely data processed in the context of criminal investigations and prosecutions undertaken by the EPPO. Regulation 2018/1725, including the standard prior consultation mechanism, applies to Europol's and EPPO's processing of administrative data, which includes data on staff and visitors, for example.
Where an EU institution is unsure whether to notify us a data processing operation for prior consultation, their DPO can consult us for advice to confirm.
As for the old prior checking Opinions, in general the prior consultation Opinions are public, but we may delete sensitive elements where necessary, related to security for example. Some opinions, which are by nature sensitive, in particular in the police and justice area, may not be published. For the sake of transparency, these Opinions are summarised in our Annual Report.
Opinion of 16 May 2008 on a notification for prior checking on the selection of candidates in order to establish a short-list for the position of European Data Protection Supervisor and the position of Assistant Supervisor (Case 2008-222)
Opinion of 29 April 2008 on a notification for prior checking on the selection procedure of members of the Agency's Scientific Committee (Joint cases 2008-179 and 2008-202)
In accordance with Regulation (EC) 168/2007 establishing the FRA, the Management Board of the Agency shall appoint a Scientific Committee after consultation of the competent Committee at the European Parliament. The FRA has therefore established a selection procedure for the selection of candidates for membership of the Scientific Committee and has submitted it to the EDPS for prior checking during the course of the procedure. Indeed, the shortlist of candidates has been established by the bodies involved in the selection procedure at the FRA (pre-selection panel, Executive Board, and Management Board) and the list of candidates is about to be communicated to the EP LIBE Committee.
The LIBE Committee requests that the Management Board provides the following information to the members of the Committee: a copy of the open call for tender and information on how the call was disseminated; a description of the selection criteria used during the procedure with justification of the selection methodology chosen; the number of applications received, broken down according to a Member State and gender, with information on how many of the applicants were not eligible to apply and a short list of candidates with their applications and CVs.
The LIBE Committee will discuss applications in a LIBE Committee session open to the public. It will then give its opinion about the candidates after receiving the above information by expressing its order of preference in a secret ballot. This opinion will be communicated to the FRA Management Board allowing it to nominate members of the Scientific Committee.
The LIBE Committee intends to make the names of the short listed candidates, their CVs and the results of the vote public based on the consent of the candidates. Non-consent on the part of any of the candidates will lead to the non publication on their data.
The EDPS adopted an opinion on this selection procedure and considered that although it was regrettable that the Notification from the FRA was submitted when the processing was well underway, all recommendations made by the EDPS, should be fully taken into account and the remedies should be put into practice. These recommendations where the following:
- that the FRA clarifies the periods for conservation of personal data; - that the FRA sets up procedures to ensure the right of access to candidates' personal data;
- that the FRA provides information to all the candidates in a privacy notice available on the FRA website and also to short listed candidates before communicating the data to the LIBE Committee;
- that the information on the processing of personal data remains available on the FRA website throughout the procedure in case applicants want to refer back to it;
- that the EP provides certain information on the processing of personal data to candidates when inviting them to attend the hearing before the LIBE Committee.
Opinion of 29 April 2008 on the notification for prior checking regarding the "Selection of confidential counsellors in the framework of the fight against psychological harassment and sexual harassment at the European Commission" (Case 2008-60)
Opinion of 28 March 2008 on the notification for prior checking regarding the case "Authorisations to give evidence in court" (Case 2007-721)
Opinion of 21 April 2008 on a notification for prior checking regarding the "Administration of JRC Ispra childcare facilities (crèche / garderie) (Case 2007-544)
The primary purpose of the processing is to admit children to the JRC Ispra Childcare Facilities, i.e. to the Crèche, the Garderie, the "Special Holidays" Garderie and the Halte-Garderie. The secondary purposes of the processing include the verification of the presence of the children, their medical surveillance, as well as the verification of the identity of persons authorised to collect the children.
The EDPS recommendations provided in this opinion aim to ensure the full compliance of the processing with Regulation 45/2001 and concern, in particular, the storage periods, as well as the information to be provided to the data subjects.