Chamber of Deputies;
Credit: Jazmin Campbell/Chronicle.lu
On Thursday 20 July 2023, the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg's parliament) adopted a bill relating to police records and data protection.
Luxembourg's Minister of Justice, Sam Tanson, standing in for the Minister of Internal Security, Henri Kox, presented the bill to MPs on this occasion.
According to Luxembourg's Ministry of Internal Security, the bill aims to better regulate police access to and processing of personal data. Through this bill, police records will now be specifically regulated with clear rules for data processing, noted the ministry.
The main objective of this bill is to regulate the processing of personal data carried out in the records of the Grand Ducal Police. It aims to address the data protection criticisms that have been raised in relation to police records.
Secondly, the bill intends to modify article 43 of the amended law of 18 July 2018 on the Grand Ducal Police. This provision provides direct access for the police to certain records of other administrations. The purpose of the change made is to adapt the list of records already accessible to the police and to better regulate their access.
Finally, the bill proposes an amendment to articles 509-1 (and so on) of the penal code, in order to take into account the misappropriation of purposes of the access rights that a person has in the context of his/her activities.
The ministry concluded that this new bill will allow more transparency by centrally regulating the purpose of data processing in records, the access rights and the retention period, but will also bring it more in line with criminal penalties in the event of unauthorised access which apply to all. It also constitutes the legal basis for enabling the police to exercise their functions effectively, according to the ministry.
