AmCham EU welcomes the opportunity to provide our views on the European Commission’s roadmap on strengthening the mandate of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol).

AmCham EU takes an active interest in the digital policies of the EU, including the field of cross-border access to electronic evidence (e-Evidence) in criminal matters. We recognise the role and responsibilities of private companies in this space and many of our members have a strong working relationship with Europol. We view the agency as an important component to preventing and combatting criminal activity in the EU.

Within the attached document we set out our initial views and subsequent questions to the policy options set out by the European Commission in its roadmap. Our views focus specifically on ‘Objective I – Enabling Europol to cooperate effectively with private parties’. We provisionally support ‘Option 3 – In addition to the receipt of data set out in Option 2, allowing Europol to request data directly from private parties or query databases managed by private parties (eg, WHOIS) in specific investigations’, provided that this operates on a voluntary basis and pending clarity on the issues set out within this document.