[t0mas88]

As a European: Privacy here is much better in the commercial world due to things like GDPR. But law enforcement and other parts of government aren't much better than the US in terms of data collection, and in some cases even much worse. GDPR mostly doesn't apply to law enforcement, and unlike the US there are far less "intelligence services shall not target our own citizens" kind of rules which the US at least in some form has.

[corty]

Also, in most parts of Europe, there is no "fruit of the poisonous tree". Meaning that law enforcement can use all the ill-gotten evidence they like, with extremely rare exceptions.

[sokoloff]

Parallel construction substantially negates the perceived penalty for such evidence though, so it’s still frequently sought, even when the police know it can’t be used directly.