A New Data Protection Development in The EU Judicial and Criminal Area

Abstract

The following article is dedicated to a new data protection regime in the European Union, in particular the Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and the Council on the protection of natural persons regarding processing of personal data by authorities aiming at prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime offences, including execution of criminal penalties. For this purpose, the authors look first at the data protection within the Prüm framework as well as at the relevant provisions of Lisbon Treaty. Тhe important cases of the European Court of Human Rights are analyzed. Whereas in 2014 EU Member states focused on the question whether or not to retain data, the 2016 conclusion was that in some aspects data retention is the most efficient measure to ensure national security, public safety and fighting across serious crimes. The terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels call to better equip security authorities. The EU legislature made significant progress on the Data Protection regime. The Directive (EU) 2016/680, the so called the ‘Police and Criminal Justice Directive’, repeals the Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA and will enter into force on 6 May 2018.