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

Data Retention, Bush and Blair

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth remembering the history of these data retention laws. Basically Blair (as a proxy for Bush) pushed these through when the UK had the EU Presidency in 2005:

http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/uk-presidency-revive-data-storag-news-214430

UK had a terrorist attack in 2005, the police tracked one suspect by his phone. Blair then insisted on data retention, saying it was necessary to catch this guy in Italy and just happened to have a piece of legislation drafted already. The EU caved and let him push it through when he held the UK EU presidency.

Oh course the logic is faulty, he WAS caught without the data retention directive, so it wasn't necessary. He was caught because he didn't know his phone could be tracked, post data retention, everyone knows it, so he would have thrown away the phone now.

The basic idea that everyone is a future potential criminal to be monitored, is very powerful. Because the police never reveal the millions of times they've poked into people lives without finding anything, only the few times they poke into the lives of people and arrest a terrorist/pedo and occasionally the times they get caught snooping into a celebrities lives for Murdoch, but mostly only the pro-surveillance marketing stuff is ever visible, with the rest kept secret.

Re:Data Retention, Bush and Blair

[serviscope_minor]

Well, Blair was one of the bigger assholes. He was effective and essentially had basically no morals.

I've also been saddened by the public response to such things as terrorist attacks.

I have been deeply impressed by the Norwegian response though. They're not going to let some guy murder a bunch of people and destroy the civility of their legal system. I wish the public in the UK would respond more like that, rather than (in general) "oe noes!!! some one died! Lets spend an arbirtary amount of money trying to prevent this one death! Screw freedoms! Please think of teh children!!!"

Re:Data Retention, Bush and Blair

[peppepz]

My country, too, which is in western Europe, is known for letting wiretapping data fall into the wrong hands. We have had cases of politicians looking for information to use against their enemies, of wealthy people keeping an eye on competitors, employees or even customers, or hackers publishing stolen data which wasn't locked down carefully enough.

Wiretapping is important, the evidence collected through it helped identify many criminals (and save many innocents). But it must be done only under the warrant of a judicial authority, and it should be performed only by trusted (and accountable) professionals. That's what the constitutions of many europen states say, and the reason they do is not because, back in the time when they were written, mass surveillance was not as easy as it is today.

there's a precedent

[terec]

There was a similar conflict when the German government wanted to collect information about everybody's religion and communicate that to their employers and churches (ostensibly for taxation purposes). If that isn't a grave violation of privacy in a country that murdered millions because of their religious affiliation, I don't know what is. There was a lawsuit over it. The outcome? The EU declared it legal. Logic apparently goes out the window when European governments or large special interests themselves want to collect data on their citizens.

Re:Independence day.

[arcade]

Yes. I dislike lots of stuff about the EU.

But at the same time, I love it. It has knit Europe together so that it has a shared destiny. This prevents wars.

It has knit Europe together, so that we don't have shitloads of border controls. We can travel between countries without passports (Well, at least between the schengen members).

Now - there are plenty bad things about the EU - but there are so many good things too.

Re:Independence day.

[SomeKDEUser]

You are an idiot. Whenever I travel to the US or even Canada, I am remined of how horrible the passing of borders can be (the Canadians are nice and polite about it, but the concept of some guy asking me where I am going without having any cause tu suspect me is highly disagreeable).

Also, you misunderstand History: the Treaty of Rome in 1957 is the treaty that started it all. The ECSC became the EU, eventually. and the EU is nmot the end point. It is a unique experiment in the History of the world to create a nation from countries with thousands of years of war behind them. It makes sense economically: 30 sets of norms are a clear hindrance to commerce, and a common market without this makes no sense. Nor does it make sense without union-wide supervision.

More importantly, it ensures my freedom to go wherever I please in Europe and work there. It ensures that no citizen is SOL when their government goes bonkers: higher norms must be obeyed. To me, the guarentee of fundamental freedoms is more important that the guarentee that my government can be arbitrarily dickish to me without external interference. People moaning about "sovereingty" really mean "I don't like them foreigners" and "why can't we be horrible to people we don't like?".