Eurojust
Eurojust is an agency of the European Union (EU). It supports the cooperation between the judicial authorities throughout the EU. For example, Eurojust helps the national authorities if they ask for assistance, but can also ask Member States to conduct an investigation or take legal action.
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Legislation for Eurojust
Eurojust was established in 2002 (Decision 2002/187/JBZ of the Council, as amended by Decision 2009/426/JBZ of the Council). These decisions have now been replaced by the Eurojust Regulation (EU) 2018/1727. The tasks and responsibilities of Eurojust can be found in this regulation.
Personal data processing by Eurojust
Eurojust does not have executive tasks, but supports the work of judicial authorities in the EU Member States. In doing so, Eurojust regularly works with personal information and processes various categories of personal data.
Supervision of Eurojust
This personal data processing is subject to independent supervision. Supervision is exercised at European level by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS). The EDPS is the independent data protection agency of the EU.
Tasks of the EDPS
The core of the activities of the EDPS is aimed at compliance with the regulations. Regarding Eurojust the EDPS:
- Advises on the processing of operational personal data. These are personal data that Eurojust processes for purposes of criminal investigations.
- Investigates or consults Eurojust if requests or objections regarding the processing of operational data have been sumitted.
- Conducts inspections on site.
- Checks whether Eurojust follows the recommendations from the inspection reports.
- Investigates complaints from people about the processing of their personal data by Eurojust.
- May order Eurojust to rectify operational personal data, restrict the processing of such data, or erase the data if they were processed contrary to relevant legislation. Or to perform specific acts when processing operational personal data.
- Gives its opinion on the provisions for data protection in (working) agreements with EU bodies or cooperation agreements with countries outside the EU.
Cooperation between EDPS and national supervisory authorities
The Eurojust Regulation explicitly provides for close cooperation between the EDPS and the national data protection authorities. This is done in the Coordinated Supervision Committee (CSC), under the umbrella of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
The CSC advises the EDPS and consists of representatives of all national data protection authorities and representatives from the EDPS. The Dutch Data Protection Authority represents the Netherlands in the CSC.
The annual report of the EDPS on the supervision of Eurojust also contains comments by the national data protection authorities.
Cooperation between EDPS and DPO of Eurojust
To ensure that processing of personal data by Eurojust is in accordance with the relevant legislation, the EDPS has to cooperate with the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of Eurojust.
More information about supervision of Eurojust
For more information about the supervision of Eurojust, see: Supervision of Eurojust on the website of the EDPS.