For years, the EU’s border agency unlawfully transferred data on migrants and activists to Europol | International | EL PAÍS EnglishSkip to content_
Lola Hierro Luděk Stavinoha Apostolis Fotiadis<br>Madrid, Brussels, Athens - Jul 13, 2025 - 02:22CEST<br>Share on Whatsapp<br>Share on Facebook<br>Share on Twitter<br>Desplegar Redes Sociales<br>Prefer EL PAÍS on Google<br>Compartir:<br>Whatsapp<br>Facebook<br>Twitter<br>Bluesky<br>Linkedin<br>Copy link
For years, under the banner of combating human smuggling, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, commonly known as Frontex, collected personal data from migrants upon their arrival to Europe. This was done via covert interrogations that lacked basic legal safeguards.<br>Between 2016 and 2023, the agency unlawfully transferred the data of more than 13,000 people to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). There, the data was stored in criminal intelligence files for use in EU police investigations. An investigation by Le Monde, Solomon – a non-profit based in Greece – and EL PAÍS based on hundreds of pages of internal documents and interviews with data protection experts and lawyers reveals the involvement of Frontex and Europol in opaque and legally questionable practices. These have led to the criminalization of migrants and the EU-based activists who assist them or have been in contact with them.<br>The border agency was forced to change its data transfer protocols following a report by an independent EU body that deemed these practices to be unlawful.<br>“My whole life was in that police file: my relatives, my calls to my mother, even false details about my sex life. They wanted to portray me as a promiscuous lesbian, using morality to make me look suspicious,” says Helena Maleno, 54, a Spanish human rights activist. She was targeted by law enforcement because of her work informing authorities about people in danger trying to reach Europe by sea. Criminal investigations launched more than a decade ago by authorities in Spain and Morocco reveal the extent of the police siege around her.<br>Helena Maleno, human rights activist.Javier Sánchez SalcedoThe file on Maleno compiled by the Spanish National Police included, among other things, three Frontex documents containing details of interviews conducted by European agents with migrants who arrived by boat in Spain between 2015 and 2016. The reports, accessed by this investigation, included information (such as her Facebook account) that presented Maleno as a suspect in human smuggling. The Spanish National Police obtained these reports from Europol’s criminal database in late 2016.<br>For years, human rights workers have warned of attempts, often made on flimsy legal grounds, to criminalize irregular migrants, along with EU citizens who provide them with assistance at European borders. Hundreds of migrants or human rights activists are detained each year, accused of facilitating irregular immigration.<br>Helena Maleno certainly isn’t the only person to have faced this problem. Norwegian citizen Tommy Olsen and Austrian citizen Natalie Gruber, both well-known activists, discovered that information about their activities also showed up in Europol’s criminal intelligence database.<br>On the hunt for information<br>The first suspicions about Frontex and Europol exchanging data began back in June of 2022, when the EU’s European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), an independent authority, issued negative opinions about Frontex’s data-processing rules. The EDPS subsequently launched an investigation. It did so after analyzing the so-called “debriefing interviews” that Frontex officers, in partnership with national law enforcement, conduct with migrants upon their arrival on European shores. These conversations are in theory voluntary.<br>During these interviews, migrants are asked questions about the reasons for their journey, or about the possible modi operandi of human smuggling networks. The EDPS report questioned the voluntary nature of these interviews, citing that “the vulnerability of interviewees and the circumstances and manner in which interviews take place means that the voluntary nature of these interviews cannot be properly ensured.” Fran Morenilla – a lawyer specializing in migrant assistance, agrees: “There’s no record of it, because there’s no signed consent form.”<br>The EDPS also inquired about the use of the information collected. Unlike Europol, Frontex does not have a legal mandate to investigate crimes or to systematically collect personal data to identify criminal suspects. The EDPS criticized Frontex for routinely labeling anyone mentioned during a debriefing interview as a “suspect” and subsequently “transferring” this information to Europol, including “data on persons the interviewee has heard of or seen.” There was no verification about the credibility of the names given, or whether the names were mentioned out of fear, or in an attempt to obtain some benefit.<br>Under Frontex’s current mandate, in force since 2019, the agency is...