EUCI shall be protected in accordance with this Decision and its implementing rules.

The holder of any item of EUCI shall be responsible for protecting it, in accordance with this Decision and its implementing rules, according to the rules laid out in Chapter 4 below.

Where Member States introduce classified information bearing a national security classification marking into the structures or networks of the Commission, the Commission shall protect that information in accordance with the requirements applicable to EUCI at the equivalent level, as set out in the table of equivalence of security classifications contained in Annex I.

An aggregate of EUCI may warrant a level of protection corresponding to a higher classification than that of its individual components.