SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC, 4th PERMANENT COMMISSION (DEFENCE), XVII LEGISLATURE, 141st MEETING, 22 JULY 2015.

On 22 July 2015, the Undersecretary of State for Defence, Mr Gioacchino Alfano, answered a parliamentary question relating to the constitution and the deployment of an elite unit of the Armed Forces within the Task Force 45 (TF45) of the NATO-covered ISAF in Afghanistan. Being TF45 provided with biometric data capture equipment for their role of support to the Afghan security forces, Mr Gioacchino Alfano dwelled on the legal basis for the collection of such data. He stated:

The capture of biometric data in Afghanistan has been carried out on the basis of the operational regulations set forth by NATO military commands and established in accordance with specific directives adopted by NATO itself.

Such documents represent the specific rules of the international organization leading the mission, to which the Italian Authority for the Protection of Personal Data (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) referred to in its Opinion delivered in the meeting of 18 December 2014, which mentioned them as possible regulatory instruments for the processing of personal data captured on territories falling outside Italian jurisdiction. This is the case in international military operations,  where the Code for the Protection of Personal Data, established under legislative decree No. 196 of 30 June 2003, is not applicable, as the Authority clarified.

The full Italian version of this statement can be downloaded here.