Requesting access to personal data stored by Europol: a guide

Europol is the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency.

Its main task is to receive, exchange and analyse information and data received from the national police authorities of EU Member States, international organisations such as Interpol, third countries and private companies. This is done in order to support national law enforcement authorities “in preventing and combating organised crime, terrorism and other forms of serious crime”.

But Europol’s powers have been steadily increasing over the last decade, which has led to it playing an increasingly important role in police activities and operations. This includes processing data on civilian activities, travel passengers, as well as third country nationals.

This guide is addressed to activists, lawyers and all interested individuals who wish to have access to personal data processed by Europol concerning themselves or their clients. The guide provides a brief overview of the relevant policy framework, as well as advice and information on the procedure for requesting access to personal data, relevant resources and a model application form.

This guide was produced by Romain Lanneau, Statewatch and Chloé Berthélémy, EDRi with contributions from Chris Jones (Statewatch), Jesper Lund (IT-Pol), Caterina Rodelli (Access Now) and Laure Baudrihaye. Translated into Greek by the Homo Digitalis’ team on a pro bono basis.

You can read the guide in other languages here.


We are talking at the CPDP for the 3rd time!

Homo Digitalis speaks for the third year at the CPDP Conference (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference), the largest international conference on data protection and privacy in the modern digital age!

This year we are participating as speakers in the workshop organized by Vrije Universiteit Brussel entitled “The Right of Access to Police Databases”, in which representatives of important institutions such as EDPS – European Data Protection Supervisor, Europol and UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles are present alongside us! This is another important recognition of Homo Digitalis’ actions in this field at European level!

In the workshop session of Friday 26 May, we will be represented by our member and lawyer Stergios Konstantinou! We would like to thank the organizers for the invitation!
You can see the CPDP2023 programme and register here.