> The commission says the legal concerns raised by the EDPS raise “a serious challenge” for Europol’s ability to fulfil its duties. Last year, it proposed sweeping changes to the regulation underpinning Europol’s powers. If made law, the proposals could in effect retrospectively legalise the data cache and preserve its contents as a testing ground for new AI and machine learning tools.

> ...

> The tussle that followed is captured in a series of internal documents obtained under freedom of information laws. They show Europol stalling for time and the watchdog telling them that they have failed to resolve “the legal breach”. The police agency appears to be holding out for new EU legislation to provide retrospective cover for what it has been doing without a legal basis for six years.

> The European Commission’s nervousness over a public clash was enough to pull Monique Pariat, the EU’s director general for home affairs, into a meeting between the two agencies in December 2021. Sources said the watchdog had been encouraged to “tone down” its public criticism of Europol.

Typical. Any talk of privacy in EU circles is mere marketing speak, void of everything. Europol won't be deleting anything and the Commission has their back on it.

It's just amazing. Anytime I read something about the Commission and compare what I've just read with the priorities they themselves have announced, it becomes clear their stated priorities are complete fiction, something someone wrote just to fill a page. You can throw in a new set of stooges every now and then but I guess a rotten institution just stays rotten.