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The European Union and the United States reaffirmed that fighting terrorism is among their top priorities and committed to enhance their joint efforts, including by expanding the sharing of information gathered in zones of combat for use in investigations and prosecutions.
The European Union and the United States also discussed current threats to aviation security, including unmanned aircraft systems; combatting the use of the internet for terrorist purposes; and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.
5G a priority area of security in cyberspace
The Eupean Union and the United States will undertake joint efforts to maintain a safe, open, and secure cyberspace, and exchanged views on how to best address growing cyber threats.
The deployment of 5G network infrastructure is one of the highest priorities, as it might pose significant security risks and impact the ability of law enforcement agencies to take effective action against crime.
It is expected to further pursue these exchanges on assessing and managing 5G and supply chain security risks through existing channels, including the Justice and Home Affairs meetings.
Electronic evidence
The European Union and the United States started discussion on swift cross-border access to electronic evidence. The the Council of the European Union has recently approved a mandate authorising the Commission to negotiate on behalf of the EU an agreement with the United States facilitating access to e-evidence for the purpose of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Such an agreement would allow police authorities easier access to tech companies’ data sets.
Birgit Sippel, a German Social Democrat and rapporteur of the e-evidence proposal in the European Parliament explained that fundamental rights and safeguards, such as privacy and data protection rights, but also procedural safeguards, are at stake if investigators start accessing and exchanging electronic evidence with third countries more easily.
The European Parliament hasn’t yet approved the regulation 2018/018(COD) that would soon underpin such data transfers — the e-evidence proposal. The draft law, which was adopted by EU countries in Council, is still under review in the parliament’s Civil Liberties committee — a process led by Sippel.
Next steps:
European Union and the United States committed to meet again in the second half of 2019 in Washington, D.C |
