EU: Commission dodging data retention dispute

EU member states closely associated with US/NSA mass surveillance (such as the UK and Sweden) have made it clear that they have no plans to end mass retention of data about all citizens all tele- and data communications. (The scheme was introduced with the EU data retention directive*.)

This will put the EU Commission between a rock and a hard place.

The Commission is the guardian of the treaties. One integrated part of the EU treaties is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. And the European Court of Justice has invalidated the EU directive on data retention–as it is in breach of human rights, according to the Charter.

So, what will the guardians of the treaties do?

For now, there has been nothing but silence from the Commission. Will it continue to dodge the issue, leaving the data retention issue to the member states?

The people in Berlaymont might want to. But I don’t think they can.

It ought to be irrelevant if the breach of the Charter is in an EU directive or in member states national legislation. The Charter trumps both.

This is the opinion of the lawyers at the European Council, the German secretary of justice, the Austrian supreme court and many others. The group of European data protection authorities–the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party–has given a statement along the same lines…

“…national data retention laws and practices should ensure that there is no bulk retention of all kinds of data and that, instead, data are subject to appropriate differentiation, limitation or exception.”

There you have it.

Blanket data retention is a big no-no.

Sooner or later, the European Commission will have to confront EU member states who persist in carrying out this form of mass surveillance.

/ HAX

* Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC.