According to Reuters there will be no new EU directive on data retention — after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last year declared the existing one to be in breach with human rights.
“On the data retention directive, the European Commission does not plan to present a new legislative initiative,” Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference in Brussels.
This is good news. No directive, no mandatory data retention in EU member states. But to fully understand the Commission statement you will need to know how the EU is working, under the hood.
Clearly, with the ECJ verdict a new directive would run into difficulties in the European Parliament. And it would, for sure, be challenged at the ECJ again.
But with no new directive, data retention will be a concern for member states. Meaning that countries who want to continue data retention can claim that their model is special and not in breach with the ECJ ruling and / or the human rights charter.
To sum it up: No new directive will not result in a ban on data retention. It will only move the issue to the respective national level. So the matter of data retention is in no way settled.
Reuters: EU executive plans no new data retention law »
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[…] In April last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) invalidated the EU directive on data retention – for breach of human rights. And recently, the European Commission has declared that there will be no new directive. […]