The EU’s top court ruled that the Bulgarian police may not collect DNA and fingerprints unnecessarily, in a judgement on Thursday.

The Court of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgement in a case stemming from the Bulgarian police’s mass collection of biometric data from suspects.

The Luxembourg-based court ruled that the Bulgarian interior ministry must prove that there is an “absolute necessity” for collecting biometric data in every case.

The case, referred to the CJEU by Sofia City Court (SHC) judge Ivo Hinov, relates to a Bulgarian woman accused of tax crimes who had alleged the forced collection of her biometric data by the police.

The Bulgarian law on the collection of biometric data, which became the centre of the case before the EU court, remains in force. It states that anyone accused of an intentional crime of a general nature must be photographed, with fingerprints and DNA samples taken.

A year and a half ago, the CJEU declared that the Bulgarian police could not systematically collect biometric and genetic data from every person charged with an intentional crime of a general nature.

Thursday’s judgement sets a much higher standard for the protection of human rights. It obliges the police to justify biometric data collection on a case-by-case basis, which it may only do when absolutely unavoidable.

The ruling affirms that the Bulgarian law is incompatible with EU law. But with the Bulgarian law remaining in force, authorities may choose to continue to collect biometric data as previously until the parliament makes a decision to comply with the CJEU judgement.

Bulgaria continues to face systemic issues around the protection of personal data and the right to private and family life. The country has been condemned twice before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for its lack of control over secret police surveillance and phone call recording.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

Source: Euractiv.com