ATHENS – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government’s plan to put 400 unarmed campus police on the perimeter of four major universities seeing violence and criminal activity was set back over personal data worries.

The guards can’t be deployed until turnstiles are installed at campus entrances, which can be used only by those with identification cards and the country’s Data Protection Agency cited concerns about student information.

The turnstiles can’t be put in place until the agency rules, said Kathimerini, with no word on what the timetable will be for that as the government wants the guards working by September when the new school year starts.

Students will use their university ID cards, which are already available in digital form from the Ministry of Digital Governance and gives them access to public transportation and would be used to get into the schools grounds, as would staff, professors and others authorized to enter.

While the information on the cards is already known to school officials, the data agenc said it needs to examine the operation of the turnstiles, who will collect the information and to whom it would be available.

Students, some staff, and outside agitators and anarchists have staged sometimes violent protests against campus cops being put in place after the government ended asylum on school grounds that were being used by criminals and drug dealers as hideouts and weapons caches.