CHAPTER III

Without prejudice to Article 14(6) and (7), Europol shall promptly notify the national units and, if the national units so request, their liaison officers of any information concerning their Member State and of connections identified between criminal offences in respect of which Europol is competent under Article 4. Information and intelligence concerning other serious crime of which Europol becomes aware in the course of its duties may also be communicated. Europol shall establish, in cooperation with the Member States, appropriate control mechanisms to allow the verification of the legality of retrievals from any of its automated data files used to process personal data and to allow Member States access to the audit logs on request. The data thus collected shall be used only for the purpose of such verification by Europol and the supervisory bodies referred to in Articles 33 and 34 and shall be deleted after 18 months, unless the data are further required for ongoing control. The Management Board shall decide on the details of such control mechanisms after consulting the Joint Supervisory Body. Personal data retrieved from any of Europol’s data processing files or communicated by any other appropriate means shall be transmitted or used only by the competent authorities of the Member States in order to prevent and combat crimes in respect of which Europol is competent, and to prevent and combat other serious forms of crime. Europol shall use the data only for the performance of its tasks. If, in the case of certain data, the communicating Member State or the communicating third State or third body stipulates particular restrictions on use to which such data is subject in that Member State, third State or third body, such restrictions shall also be complied with by the user of the data except in the specific case where national law lays down that the restrictions on use be waived for judicial authorities, legislative bodies or any other independent body set up under the law and made responsible for supervising the national competent authorities. In such cases, the data shall be used only after consultation of the communicating Member State the interests and views of which shall be taken into account as far as possible. Use of the data for other purposes or by authorities other than the national competent authorities shall be possible only after consultation of the Member State which transmitted the data in so far as the national law of that Member State permits. Europol shall hold data in data files only for as long as is necessary for the performance of its tasks. The need for continued storage shall be reviewed no later than three years after the input of data. Review of data stored in the Europol Information System and their deletion shall be carried out by the inputting unit. Review of data stored in other Europol data files and their deletion shall be carried out by Europol. Europol shall automatically inform the Member States three months in advance of the expiry of the time limits for reviewing the storage of data. During the review, the units referred to in the third and fourth sentences of paragraph 1 may decide on the continued storage of data until the following review which shall take place after another period of three years if that is still necessary for the performance of Europol’s tasks. If no decision is taken on the continued storage of data, those data shall be deleted automatically. Where a Member State deletes from its national data files data communicated to Europol which are stored in other Europol data files, it shall inform Europol accordingly. In such cases, Europol shall delete the data unless it has further interest in them, based on intelligence that is more extensive than that possessed by the communicating Member State. Europol shall inform the Member State concerned of the continued storage of such data. Such data shall not be deleted if this would damage the interests of a data subject who requires protection. In such cases, the data shall be used only with the consent of the data subject. In so far as Europol is entitled under Union, international or national legal instruments to gain computerised access to data from other information systems, of national or international nature, Europol may retrieve personal data by such means if that is necessary for the performance of its tasks. The applicable provisions of such Union, international or national legal instruments shall govern access to and the use of this data by Europol, in so far as they provide for stricter rules on access and use than those of this Decision.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-01 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.