Europol charged by activist for violating fundamental rights

Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is being held accountable for illegally processing sensitive data of Dutch activist Frank van der Linde. The activist filed a case against Europol before the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union seeking compensation for his damage.

In 2018, the Dutch police sent data on Van der Linde to Europol in which it wrongly associated him with terrorism. Despite there being clearly no connection to terrorism or any other serious crimes, Europol processed his data anyway by which it overstepped its legally defined mandate. The European police agency failed to assess the lawfulness of the data and seriously undermined the exercise of van der Linde’s rights.

By processing the activist’s data Europol made it available to all other law enforcement authorities in Europe. Besides the wrongful association with terrorism Europol also processed sensitive information on his political views and health status.

Once Van der Linde became aware of this, he requested access to this information from Europol. This was denied by the agency. In 2022 the Europol’s supervisory authority (the EDPS)  condemned Europol for failing to give access to the Van der Linde’s data and for attempting to delete his information to avoid accountability. As Politico reported in 2023: “Europol thought that deleting his data could be a solution to the problem of his access request.” Van der Linde’s case is not an exception as this article from the Guardian from 2022 already described the operations of the agency as a “data blackhole”.

Van der Linde holds Europol accountable for violating his fundamental rights, inter alia the right to privacy, the right to data protection, the right of access to personal data, the right to rectification or erasure of personal data, the right to good administration and the right to an effective remedy. The conduct of Europol was in breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Europol Regulation. The General Court is asked to hold Europol accountable.

Van der Linde is represented by lawyers Thomas van der Sommen and Emiel Jurjens from Prakken d'Oliveira Human Rights Lawyers.  

For more information:

Thomas van der Sommen +31 20 344 6200 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Frank van der Linde +31 6 54 660 402 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.