It’s part of a wider plan to expand AI in policing. The regulation would permit Europol to evade procedural safeguards, such as ensuring data stored on people is limited and proportionate to their involvement in a crime.

Europol could have your data without you even knowing. And the newly proposed Europol regulation would mean even fewer restrictions on what they can do with it. The EU police agency is set to receive unprecedented access to personal data related to current and potential cross-border investigations.

The head of the UK’s College of Policing said the police need AI injected into their daily work “like heroin into the bloodstream.” He also thinks the National Centre for AI in Policing should spread AI tools “like wildfire through policing.”

We plan to appeal, and make this clear: If the EU is planning to coerce countries by withholding aid—just to push their agenda—the public deserves to know about it.

We sought access to any discussion about these plans via freedom of information requests (FOIs). In response, the EU Commission identified 11 documents—but withheld access to all of them.

Among these were plans to make access to development funding conditional: countries could either go along with the EU's migration agenda or lose access to aid. That means forcing countries to install migration control procedures and accept deported individuals.

The EU has blocked the release of files which may outline plans to pressure countries into migration deals by withholding aid. Last summer, the Commission proposed new ways to divide funding for non-EU countries.