§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans his Department has to make use of Council Act 1999/c26/01 of 3 November 1998 with regard to the supply and sharing of and access to Europol material; what data the United Kingdom have already supplied to (i) the Europol Agency and (ii) the Schengen authorities; for what reason storage is required under the Act; if Article 10.4 enables Europol to carry out intelligence assessments in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement. [75056]
§ Kate HoeyThe Europol Convention entered into force on 1 October 1998. Europol has not yet, however, taken up the full range of its activities. There are two
268WSince 1 October 1998, appointments to those task forces which qualify for classification as advisory non-departmental public bodies have come within the remit of the Commissioner of Public Appointments.
Consultation exercises were associated with the following task forces and policy reviews:
outstanding sets of implementing regulations yet to be agreed and two member states have yet to notify ratification of one of the protocols to the Convention.
Once Europol is fully up and running, our law enforcement agencies will, through the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), make full use of the criminal intelligence analysis facilities Europol offers. In the meantime, information exchange takes place between the NCIS and United Kingdom liaison officers based at Europol's predecessor the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU).
Article 2 of the Europol Convention sets out the objectives of Europol and Article 3 its tasks. Article 10 and related regulations, all of which have been deposited for scrutiny, set out the circumstances in which data will be collected, processed, used and exchanged. Europol will be able to store only data that are necessary to enable it to carry out its remit. In the case of personal data, prior permission will be needed from Europol's Management Board and from Europol's Independent Data Protection Authority before such data can be collected and stored in an analysis file.
The assessment of information and intelligence relating to serious criminal activity in the United Kingdom is the responsibility of NCIS.
§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the planned level of involvement of Europol in internal EU fraud investigations. [75054]
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§ Kate HoeyEuropol's remit does not at present extend to fraud. As far as I am aware, no proposals have been made for Europol to become involved in internal European Union fraud investigations.