EU – Data Protection Law Enforcement
Directive (EU) 2016/680 (the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive – LED) entered into force on 6 May 2016 and Member States had until 6 May 2018 to transpose it into national law. It repealed and replaced Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA but is a
much more comprehensive and general data protection instrument. Importantly, it applies to both the domestic and the cross-border processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of preventing, investigating, detecting or prosecuting criminal offences and executing criminal penalties, including safeguarding against and preventing threats to public security (Article 1(1)).
Article 62(6) LED requires the Commission to review, by 6 May 2019, other EU legal acts that regulate competent authorities’ personal data processing for law enforcement purposes, in order to assess the need to align them with the LED and, where appropriate, to make proposals for amending them to ensure consistency in the protection of personal data within the scope of the LED.