EU plans to double Europol's budget with AI boost, raising privacy concerns

The European Union unveiled a plan this summer for a "transformative evolution" of Europol, the police cooperation agency that has coordinated European law enforcement intelligence since 1998. The proposal would double the agency's budget to €3 billion and give it a more active role in fighting emerging threats by granting access to more data and advanced technology.

The reform aims to equip Europol to counter cybercriminals, terrorists and spies who use artificial intelligence for fraud, extortion and cyberattacks. Jürgen Ebner, Europol's deputy executive director who was nominated last month to lead the agency, said AI is making criminal activity faster, more sophisticated and easier to carry out at scale, calling it a major challenge for law enforcement. He noted AI can help investigators sift through large volumes of digital evidence and connect information.

Privacy concerns

However, the plan raises governance and privacy questions. European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski said he is broadly supportive of giving Europol more data and AI tools, but stressed that oversight is essential and criticized the proposal for not addressing how Europol itself would be supervised. He warned the reform would let the agency retain data on a large number of people with no connection to criminal activity for a prolonged and indeterminate period, and that it grants too much power to Europol's internal bodies without external control.

European Parliament member Fabienne Keller said strengthening Europol must go hand in hand with strong democratic oversight and fundamental rights safeguards. Ebner himself warned police officials at a conference in Lisbon that Europol must not let data collection become an end in itself, or let urgency serve as an excuse to drop safeguards.

Former Europol cybercrime chief Stéphane Duguin argued the challenges extend beyond Europol's technical capacity, saying the entire judicial chain needs to evolve — additional investigative resources are pointless if cases ultimately fail to reach courts because of national legislation.