L 119/94
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
4.5.2016
order of the Member State concerned. However, such a Member State law, legal basis or legislative measure
should be clear and precise and its application foreseeable for those subject to it, as required by the case-law of
the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Member State law regulating the processing of
personal data within the scope of this Directive should specify at least the objectives, the personal data to be
processed, the purposes of the processing and procedures for preserving the integrity and confidentiality of
personal data and procedures for its destruction, thus providing sufficient guarantees against the risk of abuse
and arbitrariness.
(34)
The processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation,
detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding
against and the prevention of threats to public security, should cover any operation or set of operations which
are performed upon personal data or sets of personal data for those purposes, whether by automated means or
otherwise, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval,
consultation, use, alignment or combination, restriction of processing, erasure or destruction. In particular, the
rules of this Directive should apply to the transmission of personal data for the purposes of this Directive to a
recipient not subject to this Directive. Such a recipient should encompass a natural or legal person, public
authority, agency or any other body to which personal data are lawfully disclosed by the competent authority.
Where personal data were initially collected by a competent authority for one of the purposes of this Directive,
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 should apply to the processing of those data for purposes other than the purposes of
this Directive where such processing is authorised by Union or Member State law. In particular, the rules of
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 should apply to the transmission of personal data for purposes outside the scope of
this Directive. For the processing of personal data by a recipient that is not a competent authority or that is not
acting as such within the meaning of this Directive and to which personal data are lawfully disclosed by a
competent authority, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 should apply. While implementing this Directive, Member States
should also be able to further specify the application of the rules of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, subject to the
conditions set out therein.
(35)
In order to be lawful, the processing of personal data under this Directive should be necessary for the
performance of a task carried out in the public interest by a competent authority based on Union or Member
State law for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the
execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public
security. Those activities should cover the protection of vital interests of the data subject. The performance of the
tasks of preventing, investigating, detecting or prosecuting criminal offences institutionally conferred by law to
the competent authorities allows them to require or order natural persons to comply with requests made. In such
a case, the consent of the data subject, as defined in Regulation (EU) 2016/679, should not provide a legal
ground for processing personal data by competent authorities. Where the data subject is required to comply with
a legal obligation, the data subject has no genuine and free choice, so that the reaction of the data subject could
not be considered to be a freely given indication of his or her wishes. This should not preclude Member States
from providing, by law, that the data subject may agree to the processing of his or her personal data for the
purposes of this Directive, such as DNA tests in criminal investigations or the monitoring of his or her location
with electronic tags for the execution of criminal penalties.
(36)
Member States should provide that where Union or Member State law applicable to the transmitting competent
authority provides for specific conditions applicable in specific circumstances to the processing of personal data,
such as the use of handling codes, the transmitting competent authority should inform the recipient of such
personal data of those conditions and the requirement to respect them. Such conditions could, for example,
include a prohibition against transmitting the personal data further to others, or using them for purposes other
than those for which they were transmitted to the recipient, or informing the data subject in the case of a
limitation of the right of information without the prior approval of the transmitting competent authority. Those
obligations should also apply to transfers by the transmitting competent authority to recipients in third countries
or international organisations. Member States should ensure that the transmitting competent authority does not
apply such conditions to recipients in other Member States or to agencies, offices and bodies established pursuant
to Chapters 4 and 5 of Title V of the TFEU other than those applicable to similar data transmissions within the
Member State of that competent authority.
(37)
Personal data which are, by their nature, particularly sensitive in relation to fundamental rights and freedoms
merit specific protection as the context of their processing could create significant risks to the fundamental rights
and freedoms. Those personal data should include personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, whereby the use
of the term ‘racial origin’ in this Directive does not imply an acceptance by the Union of theories which attempt
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