May 23, 2013, 19:50:19

EDPS inspects EU institutions and bodies on video surveillance

By Elena Ralli |

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) published today his report regarding some on-the-spot inspections conducted between 15 June and 18 July 2012 on the premises of 13 EU institutions and bodies based on Brussels. The inspections were made in the context of the updated EDPS Video-surveillance Guidelines.

As Giovanni Buttarelli, Assistant EDPS, stated: "EUinstitutions and bodies need to comply and demonstrate their compliance with the Guidelines in the interests of transparency, accountability and good administration. As a supervisory authority, the EDPS will continue to closely monitor and follow-up video-surveillance compliance by EU institutions and bodies".

The report also includes recommendations on the potential improvement in information about video-surveillance provided to the general public. The recommendations concern the existence, location and content of selected on-the-spot notices highlighting that the area is under surveillance, the availability and the content of a data protection notice at the reception and finally, the availability and the content of an online policy.

The results of the inspections were overall satisfactory, since 11 out of the 13 institutions provide a data protection notice, even though this isnot in line with the language, format and content requirements of the Guidelines. Moreover, EDPS indicates that there is still room for improvement since only the Council, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee have made a public version of their video-surveillance policy available online.

The 13 institutions and bodies inspected were the Artemis Joint Undertaking, the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking, the Committee of the Regions, the Council of the European Union, the ENIAC Joint Undertaking, the European Anti-Fraud Office, the European Commission, the European Defence Agency, the European Economic and Social Committee, the European External Action Service, European Parliament; the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking and the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

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