European Court of Justice overturns data retention directive

[Tender Branson]

Can this day become any better ?

Top EU court overturns data retention directive

The mass storage of telecommunications data for potential investigation is illegal and breaches privacy rights, according to the EU's top court. The ruling overturns a 2006 EU directive designed to assist prosecutors.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday overturned a controversial EU directive that allowed telephone and email providers to store private citizens' data en masse for scrutiny by investigators in later cases of serious crime.

The Luxembourg-based court ruled that the directive - passed by bloc's Council of Ministers in 2006, after attacks in London and Madrid - amounted to a grave intrusion into the private lives of citizens in the 28-nation bloc.

"The directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal date," the ECJ wrote.

Any such intrusion must be restricted to the absolute minimum, the court concluded, citing the EU's charter and EU data privacy rules.

The directive lacked such limitations because it allowed data storage for up to 2 years without objective criteria being set.

http://www.dw.de/top-eu-court-overturns-data-retention-directive/a-17550163

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

News that made my day!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Great news!

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

From what I understand, the EU already had strict information about the storage of private information such as dialing history. The information could only be stored for legitimate billing purposes. Storing the information for other purposes is prohibited, even just to analyze the performance of their network.

Of course the US has zero regulation there.

[Tender Branson]

Today, Austria became the first EU member country to declare the government data collection and storage unconstitutional, based on the EU court ruling and a case that was put before the court in Austria:

Austrian court axes data retention law following EU high court ruling

A court in Austria has ruled that the country's data retention law is unconstitutional as it violates fundamental European privacy rights.

The decision by the Constitutional Court of Austria comes in the wake of a recent ruling of the EU's top court that found EU laws requiring communications providers to retain metadata to be invalid.

Austria's data retention law violates article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that covers the right to respect of private and family life, the Constitutional Court ruled Friday.

(...)

Austrian and other European telecommunications and Internet providers are required by the EU's Data Retention Directive to retain traffic and location data as well as related data necessary to identify the user. This is done in order to help law enforcement fight organized crime and terrorism.

However, the Constitutional Court of Austria and the High Court of Ireland doubted the validity of the directive and asked the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) if it violated fundamental privacy rights. The CJEU ruled in April that the data retention directive is indeed illegal.

However, this does not mean that all data retention laws in European member states are automatically void. The CJEU's ruling is binding though for national courts who have to dispose of cases in accordance with its decision.

That is what happened Friday in Austria, Neuwirth said.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/548734/austrian_court_axes_data_retention_law_following_eu_high_court_ruling/?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=taxonomyfeed

...

A good day for freedom.