European Data Retention Rule Could Violate Fundamental EU Law

An anonymous reader writes in with a story about the Constitutional Court of Austria objecting to the EU's data retention law. "The European Union's data retention law could breach fundamental E.U. law because its requirements result in an invasion of citizens' privacy, according to the Constitutional Court of Austria, which has asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to determine the directive's validity. The primary problem with the data retention law is that it almost exclusively affects people in whom government or law enforcement have no prior interest. But authorities use the data for investigations and are informed about people's personal lives, the court said, and there is a risk that the data can be abused. 'We doubt that the E.U. Data Retention Directive is really compatible with the rights that are guaranteed by the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights,' Gerhart Holzinger, president of the Constitutional Court of Austria said in a statement."

Comments

Re:there's a precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

That case is far more complicated. The only collect the data for the religious communities that want their church tax collected by the government. And what people need to specify is which church people belong to, not what they believe.
A lot of people even of those still going to church will not specify their religion because they don't want to pay the church tax (in theory that also means they can't get married in church etc. but usually you can just join the church again for a little while if you really want that).
And you forgot that you're also supposed to report that information to your bank, since they too are involved in taxation nowadays.
So to summarize:
1) They do not and never did collect info on one's religion, but only church membership
2) It is only done for some churches (which actually is a part of another lawsuit, more churches want the government to collect money for them).
3) All of the churches on that list are on it because they want to be
4) To my knowledge there is no legal problem with you not specifying this to the government etc. as long as you can reach a different agreement with your church (you likely won't be able to, but that's not the government's fault).
Which all makes this not really a privacy issue, since the only case in which you have to specify anything is if you _choose_ to be part of a church that forces you to do it.