17.12.2009 Official Journal of the European Union L 332/17 (Acts adopted under the EU Treaty) ACTS ADOPTED UNDER TITLE VI OF THE EU TREATY COUNCIL DECISION 2009/968/JHA of 30 November 2009 adopting the rules on the confidentiality of Europol information THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to Council Decision 2009/371/JHA of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) (1) (the Europol Decision) and in particular Article 40 thereof, Having regard to the draft rules submitted by the Management Board, Having regard to the Opinion of the European Parliament, Whereas in accordance with the Europol Decision, it is for the Council, acting by qualified majority after consulting the European Parliament, to adopt implementing rules on the confi- dentiality of information which is obtained by, or exchanged with, Europol (hereinafter the rules), HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS: CHAPTER 1 DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE Article 1 Definitions For the purposes of these rules, (a) ‘processing of information’ or ‘processing’ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal or non-personal data, whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording, organi- sation, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consult- ation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking, erasure or destruction; (b) ‘third party’ means an entity referred to in Articles 22(1) and 23(1) of the Europol Decision; (c) ‘Security Committee’ means the Committee consisting of representatives of the Member States and Europol, as described in Article 4; () O] L 121, 15.5.2009, p. 37. (d) ‘Security Coordinator’ means the Deputy Director to whom the Director — in pursuance of Article 38(2) of the Europol Decision — assigns, alongside his other tasks, the function of coordination and control in matters of security; (e) ‘Security Officers’ means the Europol staff, appointed by the Director, responsible for security issues in accordance with Article 6; (f) ‘Security Manual' means the manual implementing these rules, to be established in accordance with Article 7; (g) ‘classification level means a security marking assigned to a document processed by or through Europol, as referred to in Article 10; (h) ‘security package’ means a specified combination of security measures to be applied to information subject to a Europol classification level as referred to in Article 10; (i) ‘basic protection level’ means the level of protection which shall be applied to all information processed by or through Europol, except information which is expressly marked or is clearly recognisable as being public information, as referred to in Article 10(1); () ‘staff means temporary staff and contract staff as defined in Article 39(4) of the Europol Decision; (k) ‘Europol classified information’ means any information and material in any form, an unauthorised disclosure of which could cause varying degrees of prejudice to the essential interests of Europol or of one or more Member States, and that requires the application of appropriate security measures as defined in Article 7(2)(b). Atrticle 2 Scope 1. These rules establish the security measures to be applied to all information which is processed by or through Europol.