"Described by former officials as a 'shadow IT environment', the system lacked basic security or data protection safeguards required under EU law. It was used to store and analyse highly sensitive data - phone records, identity documents and geolocation information - including details of people who were not suspected of a crime."
"For the first time in the agency's history, several former high-ranking officials have come forward to reveal that the use of this shadow environment to store vast amounts of data - and the use of a clandestine intelligence tool known internally as the 'Pressure Cooker' - had been concealed from the EU's top privacy watchdog until 2019."
"'They protect the law while breaking it,' one former senior official said of Europol."
"Conservative MP David Davis, an outspoken critic of creeping data collection by governments, said that the findings, 'if true, point to serious failures of oversight, legality and data protection'."
Europol maintained a shadow data repository that stored sensitive personal information, including phone records and geolocation data, without proper security measures. This system, described as a 'shadow IT environment', was used for large-scale data analysis and lacked controls over data access. Former officials revealed that this practice was concealed from the EU's privacy watchdog until 2019. The findings raise concerns about oversight and legality, coinciding with proposed legislation to expand Europol's mandate and budget, as well as the resignation of its executive director.
Read at ComputerWeekly.com
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