European Parliament Approves Enhanced Cyber Powers for Europol to Combat Terrorism and Crime

The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee granted Europol with the ability to set up specialized units to immediately respond to emerging threats, including cross-border crimes and terrorist threats.

Under the regulation the Internet Referral Unit, which is tasked with monitoring terrorist propaganda and related violent extremist activities on the Internet, will be given legal certainty. The unit will be responsible for alerting Internet service providers of content that it flags. It will also provide operational and strategic analytical support to European Union governments.

The unit began operations on July 1, 2015 and was modeled after Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism internet-referral unit. It was developed in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January of that same year. The primary focus of its operations was to take down the social media accounts linked to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, within two hours of their detection. To do this it relies on network analytics to discover the accounts spurting out the most prolific amount of content. Tracking down the terrorist group’s financing was also written into the unit’s mandate.

The new law will also grant Eurojust, the European Union’s judicial cooperation body, the ability to access the data Europol collects and stores. However, Europol will also fall even further under the careful watch of the European Parliament. If the European Parliament approves the law in the upcoming plenary in May, the law will come into effect on April 1st of next year.

Enhancing Europol’s cyber powers is another step the European Union is taking in coordinating its counter-terrorism efforts. It follows the establishment of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) at the beginning of 2016. Attacks like the one at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the coordinated suicide bombs and shooting that began at the Bataclan in Paris in November 2015, and the airport and metro blasts in Brussels in March 2016 placed a spotlight on the turf wars and lack of intelligence sharing that stymie Europe’s ability to deter and prevent terrorist attacks. While unique in its formation, a case study of Belgium alone shows how difficult it is for effective coordination to be carried out.