Nathalie Vandystadt reports:
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) – the EU’s advisory body – stated, on 31 May, its view that the EU’s controversial Data Retention Directive “does not meet the requirements imposed by the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection”. The 2006 directive requires all providers of electronic communication services to store traffic and location data of the communications of all EU citizens, for possible use for law enforcement purposes and in particular in the fight against terrorism. On 18 April, the European Commission published a report warning against a too thorough revision of the legislation (see Europolitics4186). In particular, the Commission’s experts were opposed to limited storage of data in the case of strong suspicion (as opposed to the current timeframe of six months to two years) – a revision that had been called for by those who were against the legislation. However, experts recognise that there are problems linked to the protection of privacy, which have not been covered by the legislation. These problems have prompted three courts – in Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania – to cancel its transposition into national legislation.
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