R (87) 15 : a slow death?

Abstract

Recommendation R (87) 15 was vaunted as being possibly one of the most successful products of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on Data Protection. Its adoption as an Annex to the Schengen Agreement meant that it became (or was expected to become) the de facto data protection standard for police forces across Europe. Nearly twenty years have passed since R (87) 15 was finalised in the teeth of much opposition from a number of security forces across Europe. The methods chosen by terrorists and criminals since 1987 have also taken a number of new directions making police and security forces even hungrier users of personal data. On the face of it in spite of three review exercises, R (87) 15 bas been retained intact. Indeed by 1992 (in Recommendation 1181(1992)1 on police c-operation and protection of personal data in the police sector) the member states of the Council of Europe bad agreed to more towards a convention enshrining the principles of R (87)15. Fifteen years from R 1181(1992)1, R (87)15 bas never made i o convention status. The data protection star is on the wane and, while some continue to pay lip service to R(87)15, a number of measures have been agreed at the European level which appear to undermine the spirit if not the letter of the landmark recommendation which is so unloved by police forces. This paper traces the review processes of R (87) 15 within the Council of Europe and the up-grade measures considered within the CJ-PD (Committee of Experts on Data Protection). These are then contrasted with actual developments which resulted in the recommendations of the Working Party on Data Retention and the resultant ignoring of the data protection position by the Council of Ministers and Parliament, New technologies like biometric passports have led to agreement at the European level which further promise widespread collection of personal data by police and security forces. These recent developments fuelled by concerns rendered more acute in the wake of 9/11 may be interpreted as signifying the beginning of the end for R (87) 15 or alternatively as being merely part o the downward graph in a cyclical evolution of a data protection culture. 'My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries than (British) society would feel comfortable with...' (Richard Thomas ~ August 2006)