Several MEPs asked the European Commission for explanations on 7 July about the transfer of migrants’ personal data by Frontex to the police cooperation agency Europol, as revealed in an investigation published by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).
According to BIRN, Frontex, then still headed by Fabrice Leggeri, apparently sought at the end of 2021 to extend a data collection and transfer programme with Europol and minimise obligations to respect personal data protection, namely the PeDRA programme, a personal data processing programme for risk analysis launched in 2016 after the November 2015 attacks in Paris.
The then leadership team reportedly “proposed to significantly ramp up this programme, allowing Frontex border guards to collect what some legal experts have called ‘intrusive’ personal data on migrants and asylum seekers, including genetic data and sexual orientation”, the site says, in order to “store, analyse and share that data with Europol and security agencies of Member States”.
Both Frontex and Europol are said to have ignored warnings from their own data protection officers about potentially illegal data transfers.
“We ask the Commission, Frontex and Europol to fully explain and end this programme. Collecting sensitive data puts fundamental rights at risk and should entail strong safeguards”, reacted Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont (Greens/EFA) on Twitter.
The Commission had not yet responded to EUROPE’s request for information at the time of writing. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)