Recruitment of trainees - EMSA

Opinion of 29 September 2008 on a notification for prior checking regarding "recruitment of trainees within the traineeship scheme in EMSA" (Case 2008-384)

The European Maritime Safety Agency offers a traineeship period from three to five months to interested individuals. In the process of selecting trainees, EMSA processes a variety of personal data of applicants. Anybody can become data subject who applies for a traineeship at EMSA.

EMSA is a relatively young agency and although in many instances it provides good standard for protecting applicants' data (e.g. general information given to candidates) not all data protection aspects are yet well defined. This is the case regarding the storage period and the handling of data on disability for obtaining certain supplementary grant. The EDPS made specific suggestions in these areas.