BRUSSELS: The EU’s data protection watchdog said Monday it had ordered Europol to delete data on individuals with no links to crime that did not respect safeguards on storing such information.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said it intervened after Europol — Europe’s law enforcement cooperation agency — failed to comply with a 2020 warning that it was retaining personal data not linked to crime.
It added that the data was being kept “for longer than necessary, contrary to the principles of data minimization and storage limitation.”
The order imposing a six-month limit for such data to be stored was given to Europol on January 3, it said.
“A six-month period for pre-analysis and filtering of large datasets should enable Europol to meet the operational demands of EU Member States relying on Europol... while minimizing the risks to individuals’ rights and freedoms,” EDPS head Wojciech Wiewiorowski said in a statement.
He added that Europol was granted a 12-month period to comply with the datasets already in its possession.
In response, Europol warned that the decision would hamper some of its most important investigations.
“The EDPS Decision will impact on Europol’s ability to analyze complex and large datasets at the request of EU law enforcement,” the agency said in a statement.
“This concerns data owned by Member States and operational partners and provided to Europol in connection with investigations supported within its mandate,” it said.
“It includes: terrorism, cybercrime, international drugs trafficking, and child abuse among others. Europol’s support frequently entails a period longer than six months as illustrated by some of its most prominent cases.”
The European Commission — the EU executive — “took note” of the EDPS decision but welcomed the 12-month derogation period, a spokeswoman told AFP.
“The data retention period should be sufficiently long to allow Europol to carry out its tasks effectively and provide its added value to the work of national law enforcement authorities, including in complex counter-terrorism cases,” the spokeswoman said.
She added that datasets given to The Hague-based Europol by EU member states had become bigger in recent years, and it often took time to sift through them to investigate crimes.
“For us it is clear that law enforcement cannot effectively fight crime if it cannot process large data. This data processing requires a considerable amount of time,” she said.
Europol told to erase data on individuals not linked to crime
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Europol told to erase data on individuals not linked to crime
- “The data retention period should be sufficiently long to allow Europol to carry out its tasks effectively and provide its added value to the work of national law enforcement authorities, including in complex counter-terrorism cases”
Disinformation the new enemy in disaster zones, says Red Cross
- “Harmful information and dehumanizing narratives” undermines humanitarian aid and putting lives of aid workers at risk
- Between 2020 and 2024, disasters affected nearly 700 million people, displaced over 105 million, and killed more than 270,000 — doubling the number in need of humanitarian aid
GENEVA: The rise of disinformation is undermining humanitarian aid and putting lives at risk, while disasters are affecting ever more people, the Red Cross warned Thursday.
“Between 2020 and 2024, disasters affected nearly 700 million people, caused more than 105 million displacements, and claimed over 270,000 lives,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
The number of people needing humanitarian assistance more than doubled in the same timeframe, the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report 2026.
But the world’s largest humanitarian network said that “harmful information and dehumanizing narratives” were increasingly undermining trust, putting the lives of aid workers at risk.
“In polarized and politically-charged contexts, humanitarian principles such as neutrality and impartiality are increasingly misunderstood, misrepresented or deliberately attacked online,” it said.
The IFRC has more than 17 million volunteers across more than 191 countries.
“In every crisis I have witnessed, information is as essential as food, water and shelter,” said the Geneva-based federation’s secretary general Jagan Chapagain.
“But when information is false, misleading or deliberately manipulated, it can deepen fear, obstruct humanitarian access and cost lives.”
He said harmful information was not a new phenomenon, but it was now moving “with unprecedented speed and reach.”
Chapagain said digital platforms were proving “fertile ground for lies.”
The IFRC report said the challenge nowadays was no longer about the availability of information but its reliability, noting that the production and spread of disinformation was easily amplified by artificial intelligence.
- ‘Life and death’ -
The report cited numerous recent examples of harmful information hampering crisis response.
During the 2024 floods in Valencia, false narratives online accused the Spanish Red Cross of diverting aid to migrants, which in turn fueled “xenophobic attacks on volunteers,” the IFRC said.
In South Sudan, rumors that humanitarian agencies were distributing poisoned food “caused people to avoid life-saving aid” and led to threats against Red Cross staff.
In Lebanon, false claims that volunteers were spreading Covid-19, favoring certain groups with aid and providing unsafe cholera vaccines eroded trust and endangered vulnerable communities, the IFRC said.
And in Bangladesh, during political unrest, volunteers faced “widespread accusations of inaction and political alignment,” leading to harassment and reputational damage, it added.
Similar events were registered by the IFRC in Sudan, Myanmar, Peru, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Kenya and Bulgaria.
The report underlined that around 94 percent of disasters were handled by national authorities and local communities, without international interventions.
“However, while volunteers, local leaders and community media are often the most trusted messengers, they operate in increasingly hostile and polarized information environments,” the IFRC said.
The federation called on governments, tech firms, humanitarian agencies and local actors to recognize that reliable information “is a matter of life and death.”
“Without trust, people are less likely to prepare, seek help or follow life-saving guidance; with it, communities act together, absorb shocks and recover more effectively,” said Chapagain.
The organization urged technology platforms to prioritize authoritative information from trusted sources in crisis contexts, and transparently moderate harmful content.
And it said humanitarian agencies needed to make preparing to deal with disinformation “a core function” of their operations, with trained teams and analytics.
