Privatsphäre in den EU-Organen

Opinion of 10 November 2008 on a notification for prior checking related to Internt monitoring (Case 2008-284)

The Court of Auditors engages in the monitoring of the Court's of its Internet infrastructure for the following purposes: (i) to ensure the functionality of the network and avoid security breaches and also (ii) to verify whether Court's users employ the Internet in accordance with the allowed uses laid down in the Internet Security Policy.

The EDPS has issued an opinion relating to Court of Auditors Internet monitoring practices which assesses  the extent to which such monitoring  complies with Regulation 45/2001.  The EDPS concludes that the intended data processing activities give rise to doubts about their compatibility with necessity and proportionality principles laid down in Regulation 45/2001. To address this problem, the EDPS recommends, among others, the following:

(i) In the absence of an adequate suspicion, to abstain from monitoring URLs of visited Web sites unless there is a justified reason for such an activity, namely, in case of extremely long URLs, and  dangerous sites as specified in SANS, CERT, and similar publications; (ii) To consider using other indicators (volume of data downloaded, time spent, and other off line indicators) to discover abuse.

The Opinion contains other recommendations regarding other aspects of the data processing (provision of information, security, transfers of information, etc).

Opinion of 7 November 2008 on the notification for prior checking regarding the Internal Promotion of Officials and Regrading of Temporary Agents (Case 2008-095)

Opinion of 5 November 2008 on the notification for prior checking regarding occupational radiation exposure data (Case 2007-0383)

Opinion of 3 November 2008 on the notification for prior checking on "Traffic violations with official vehicles of the Commission managed by the Infrastructure and Logistics Office - Brussels (OIB)" (Case 2008-395)

Within the European Commission, the Mobility and Supplies Unit, which is responsible for managing the car pool, deals with offences against the highway code committed by the drivers of official Commission vehicles managed by the OIB. The purposes of the processing operation are to examine whether, when traffic violations are committed by the drivers of official Commission vehicles, the immunity granted by the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities can be invoked, and to provide administration and follow-up.

The proposed data processing operation complies with Regulation (CE) No 45/2001, if the Commission:

• reminds anyone who receives or processes data in the context of the procedure for handling penalty notices that the data may not be used for other purposes;
• complies with Articles 8 and 9 as regards the transfer of data to the competent authorities;
• as well as publishing the privacy statement on the internet, sends it to all data subjects concerned by this processing operation at the same time as the document on the procedure for forwarding the penalty notice;
• updates the "Information for the attention of drivers of official Commission vehicles" to make the necessary changes (name of the controller and details of the data recipients).

Consultation on the new model medical certificate (introduction in all the institution)