Privacy in the EU Institutions

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.

Opinion of 29 September 2008 on the notification for prior checking on double dependent child allowance for a handicapped child (Case 2008-405)

Pursuant to Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations, the Council has laid down a procedure for obtaining the opinion of the medical officer on the award of double dependent child allowance on the basis of probative medical documents. Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations states that the dependent child allowance may be doubled, by special reasoned decision of the appointing authority based on probative medical documents establishing that the child concerned is suffering from a mental or physical handicap which involves the official in heavy expenditure.

The proposed processing operation does not appear to involve any infringement of the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001, provided that the Council sets an appropriate and proportionate period for the retention of data in ARPEGE, provides appropriate safeguards for long-term data storage, informs recipients that the data may not be used for other purposes, draws up an information note on the procedure for implementing the medical officer's conclusions on the award of double child allowance for a handicapped dependent child or supplements the note provided by the medical officer when the handicap is assessed.

Opinion of 19 September 2008 on the notification for prior checking concerning the "Applications for paid or unpaid traineeship" (Case 2008-391)

Answer to a notification for prior checking relating to the annual appraisal reports (Case 2008-415)

Answer to a notification for prior checking regarding the SUPERVISEO processing operation (Case 2008-052)