Europol: confidentiality of information. Initiative Denmark

PURPOSE : to amend Council Act of 3 November 1998 adopting rules on the confidentiality of Europol information. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Council Act amending the Council Act of 3 November 1998 adopting rules on the confidentiality of Europol information. CONTENT : the Council adopted the Act amending the Council Act of 3 November 1998 adopting the rules on the confidentiality of Europol information. There is a need to align the classification levels to be applied within Europol, with respect to the security and measures to be applied, so that they correspond as far as possible to the levels currently applied within the institutions of the European Union and to existing international standards. The Council, acting unanimously, adopted appropriate rules on the confidentiality of information which is obtained by or exchanged with Europol on the basis of the Europol Convention. This text is hereby amended as follows: - the Europol classification levels will be named "Europol Restricted", "Europol Confidential", "Europol Secret" and "Europol Top Secret". - "Europol Restricted": this classification shall be applied to information and material the unauthorised disclosure of which could be disadvantageous to the interests of Europol or of one or more Member States. - "Europol Confidential": this classification shall be applied to information and material the unauthorised disclosure of which could harm to the essential interests of Europol or one or more Member States. - "Europol Secret": this classification shall be applied only to inforamtion and material the unauthorised disclosure of which could seriously harm the essential interests of Europol or of one or more Member States. - "Europol Top Secret": this classification shall be applied only to information and material the unauthorised disclosure of which could cause exceptionally grave prejudice to the essential interests of Europol or of one or more Member States. Each Europol classification level shall relate to a specific security package, to be applied within Europol. The security packages shall offer different levels of protection, depending on the content of the information, and taking account of the detrimental effect, which unauthorised access, dissemination or use of the information, might have on the interests of Europol or the Member States. The translation of proactively marked documents shall be subject to the same protection as the originals. The security packages shall consist of various measures of a technical, organisational or administrative nature, as laid down in the Security Manual. ENTRY INTO FORCE : 1 July 2003.�