Structural trainees - Commission

Opinion of 30 March 2009 on the notification for prior checking regarding structural trainees (Case 2008-760)

Under Commission Decision C(2008)866, officials from the public administrations of Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, non-member countries and intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) may apply for traineeships at the European Commission as part of their professional training. The European Commission has organised a data processing operation in order to select these trainees, who are called "structural trainees" (also "national experts") .

That processing operation complies with Regulation (EC) No 45/2001, provided that certain number of measures are applied, in particular: adopting an appropriate period for the storage of data; communicating sensitive data on a strictly need-to-know basis; ensuring that applicants have full access to the data relating to them during the selection procedure, and informing the trainees accepted for a Commission traineeship that their data will be further processed during the administration of their personnel files.