European Court of Justice rules EU data retention directive void

Categories: Latest News
Thursday April 10 2014
The EU Observer, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Mail and BBC News all report on the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) ruling annulling the European “data retention directive” on internet and phone communications. Its judgement follows requests by NGOs, local governments and 11,130 private applicants for the court’s intervention over ‘surveillance’ of citizens’ private communications.
The Directive allows for internet and phone companies to store data on who contacts whom, when, how often, and from which locations, for between six months and two years so that government agencies can potentially use it to investigate ‘serious crimes’.
The Court ruled that the Directive, which was passed in 2006 following the 7/7 terror attacks in London, amounted to a “particularly serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data”.
The ECJ added that Europeans are likely to “feel their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance” as a result.
According to the Guardian, any criminal cases which have been based on the acquisition of data through the directive could also be called into question because the court determined that its judgement would “take effect from the date on which the directive entered into force.”
A Home Office spokesman revealed the Government is now considering the “implications carefully” as its own Communications Data Bill makes its way through Parliament. Theresa May had plans to push through a data retention scheme to collect and store data from people’s use of phones and internet in the UK for up to 12 months.
The Daily Telegraph reports that UK has already transcribed the EU directive into domestic legislation. The Comms Data Bill (the so-called “snooper’s charter”) was drafted and presented to Parliament in 2012 and proposes to increase the amount of time data relating to people’s internet usage must be stored by communication service providers.
The Bill received criticism from the Joint Select Committee in December 2012 as well as from John Kampfner, Director of Index On Censorship, who said “The problem, when it comes to having an input into this Bill and to other measures driven by the securocracy, is that no political party is prepared to fight hard for individual liberties.”
Furthermore, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Anthony May, is currently undertaking an inquiry into whether there is “institutional overuse” of authorisations to acquire communications data.
Sir Anthony observed in his annual report published this month and released yesterday, that a total of 514,608 requests were made in 2013 for communications data. 87.7% of the requests were made by police forces and law enforcement agencies and a further 11.5% by intelligence agencies.
The report provides a breakdown of the number of requests submitted by intelligence agencies: 56,918, 1,406 and 672 applications were made by MI5, GCHQ and MI6 respectively.
Despite admitting that the statistics may be liable to be misleading, Sir Anthony concluded, “It has the feel of being too many.”
He added “Since a very large proportion of these communications data applications come from police and law enforcement investigations, it may be that criminal investigations generally are now conducted with such automatic resort to communications data that applications are made and justified as necessary and proportionate, when more emphasis is placed on advancing the investigations with the requirements of privacy unduly subordinated.”