In the 2025 reform of its mandate, Europol, the EU law enforcement cooperation agency, obtained new powers to support Member States' law enforcement authorities in the fight against so-called "migrant smuggling". Europol's databases serve national law enforcement by storing personal data of suspects and victims of "migrant smuggling" activities and making it available for criminal investigations.
Its formally established "European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling" is a dedicated team within Europol composed of Europol staff and representatives of Eurojust, the EU judicial cooperation agency, and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). It is tasked with exchanging data with third countries, including EU Member States' immigration liaison officers deployed in third countries. The objective of the reform was to increase the amount of information on "migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings" that Member States, other EU agencies and third countries share with Europol.
The reform also increased Europol's budget in order to upgrade its biometric analytics systems (fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition) and to hire data scientists who can analyse biometric data.
Other laws include data protection instruments, such "adequacy decisions", that enable the EU to exchange with third countries, whose laws are considered providing an adequate level of data protection safeguards.