№61 Mass Surveillance of Personal Data by EU Member States and its Compatibility with EU Law
№61 Mass Surveillance of Personal Data by EU Member States and its Compatibility with EU Law

Author(s): Didier Bigo, Sergio Carrera, Nicholas Hernanz, Julien Jeandesboz, Joanna Parkin, Francesco Ragazzi, Amandine Scherrer
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Security and defense, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment, EU-Legislation
Published by: CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies
Keywords: Mass Surveillance; Personal data; EU Member states; EU law;
Summary/Abstract: In the wake of the disclosures surrounding PRISM and other US surveillance programmes, this paper assesses the large-scale surveillance practices by a selection of EU member states: the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Given the large-scale nature of these practices, which represent a reconfiguration of traditional intelligence gathering, the paper contends that an analysis of European surveillance programmes cannot be reduced to a question of the balance between data protection versus national security, but has to be framed in terms of collective freedoms and democracy. It finds that four of the five EU member states selected for in-depth examination are engaging in some form of large-scale interception and surveillance of communication data, and identifies parallels and discrepancies between these programmes and the NSA-run operations.

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