Fighting crime, European choices and the new rules of Europol, which can be used to control the most critical activists

ROME – Is there a difference between anti-racism, even radical, and the terrorist choice? According to the new rules governing Europol – the European police office, the European Union agency for the fight against crime in the territory of the member states – the criticisms of the governments’ choices seem to coincide with a subversive position. It is the alarm that comes from Statewatch, the British organization which monitors the protection of civil rights in the European Union. According to the NGO’s latest report, which is titled “Upgrade police, remove wards”, the new regulation of Europol expands the powers of the European police agency at the expense of security guarantees privacy and the protection of human rights. In the European Parliament a debate organized by Fair Trials, European Digital Rights, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants and European Network Against Racismhas set itself the goal of identifying solutions to monitor the work of Europol.

Activist stories. Frank van der Linde is a Dutch activist involved in protests, including via social media, against racism. Although he had no criminal record, he was placed under observation by the police. When, after a long process, he finally manages to consult his file with the police, he discovers that his data has been shared with Europol and being suspected of terrorism. The European police did not initially grant him authorization to consult the file. With the help of Statewatchvan der Linde turns to the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), who initiates an investigation that lasts two years, at the end of which he orders a Europol to provide the activist with all the information concerning him. The investigation reveals not only that Europol had not justified the refusal to allow van der Linde to consult his data, but had even tried to delete them to avoid showing them to him, thus contravening the law.

Lies on social media. The activist’s social channels had also been spied on by the police. “The police exaggerate what you do or write on social media, in order to justify the fact that they monitor you,” he explains. And so the transition from activism to suspicion of terrorism becomes almost immediate. In a 2017 tweet, police claimed that he had written about a demonstration that any attack on children would be a side effect. “But I’ve obviously never written such a thing. I appealed to the court in Amsterdam to have the lies deleted from my file but the damage was now done because that information had already been sent to Europol“, tells. “I’m sure many of my fellow activists are already entered into the European police database, but they don’t even know it. I represent the tip of the iceberg. I am now involved in more than seventy cases against the police to gain access to information about me that they unlawfully disseminated. It’s become a full-time job for me.”

The new powers of Europol. Among the new Europol rules, the most significant changes concern the processing and dissemination of personal data. The police are authorized to process a large amount of information received from EU member states even on people who have no connection to criminal activities. Again: it can use data received from non-European states to create “information alerts”, enrich the database of the Schengen system (SIS) and pass this information to the national police forces, thus increasing the possibility that some autocracies will exploit this system to prosecute dissidents and political opponents.

The difficult balance between security and rights. “The case of Frank van der Linde is an example of how states use anti-terrorism legislation to spy on dissidents or activists,” explains Roman Lannau, researcher at Statewatch. “It is such a widespread trend in EU countries that in this case the data of a peaceful activist was forwarded by the Dutch police to both Europol and Germany, but no one has protested against the illegitimacy of this sharing”. In practice, thanks to the new rules, Member States can circumvent national constraints in the processing of individual data, entrusting them to Europol. So, if you can’t keep information about a certain person beyond a certain period of time because local laws dictate that, the cops send the information to Europol so that the agency keeps them safe and gives them the opportunity to consult them for an extended period of time. Obviously, to justify the requests a Europol, national police must exaggerate reports about the person. As happened to Frank van der Linde, who as an activist found himself being monitored as a potential terrorist.