EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has ruled in response to a complaint by former Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer that it constitutes “maladministration” for EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) to have green-lighted an official moving to U.S. company Thorn, a private entity developing AI-based software solutions to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online.

O’Reilly criticizes that no restrictions were imposed on the employee, despite potential conflicts of interest as the EU was considering adopting rules on the matter.

The official was even allowed to continue working in the same role at Europol for two months before the transition. “Europol failed to deal with the above conflict of interest situation, putting at risk the integrity and impartiality of its actions,” the Ombudsman stated in her decision.

“The Ombudsman found that how Europol had dealt with the move of one staff member to the private sector amounted to maladministration.” the ruling also says.

[The official in question was Cathal Delaney, who had worked on an AI pilot project for detection at Europol and, after moving to Thorn, was registered as a lobbyist in the Bundestag, the German parliament.]