Council Decision of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) (2009/371/JHA) (repealed)

Article 40 Confidentiality

1. Europol and the Member States shall take appropriate measures to protect information subject to the requirement of confidentiality which is obtained by or exchanged with Europol pursuant to this Decision. To that end the Council, acting by qualified majority after consulting the European Parliament, shall adopt appropriate rules on confidentiality prepared by the Management Board. Those rules shall include provisions concerning the cases in which Europol may exchange information subject to the requirement of confidentiality with third parties.

2. Where Europol intends to entrust persons with a sensitive activity, Member States shall undertake to arrange, at the request of the Director, for security screening of their own nationals to be carried out in accordance with their national provisions and to provide each other with mutual assistance for that purpose. The relevant authority under national provisions shall inform Europol only of the results of the security screening. Those results shall be binding on Europol.

3. Each Member State and Europol may entrust the processing of data at Europol only to those persons who have had special training and undergone security screening. The Management Board shall adopt rules for the security clearance of Europol staff. The Director shall regularly inform the Management Board on the state of security screening of Europol staff.