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EU Advocate General Says EU Data Retention Directive Unlawful

Posted by timothy on from the bit-much-fellas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice today issued their opinion that the EU Directive covering the retention of data is incompatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In an interim ruling in a case taken by the Irish Digital Rights movement, the AG found the limitation on a persons right to privacy imposed by the EU Directive was not properly laid down in law. The ECR has yet to make a formal ruling and is not bound by the AG opinion, however it is unusual for the court not to follow suit."

6 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. WOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    WOW

    1. Re:WOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Such privacy, many liberty. Wow. Very data.

  2. Typical Irish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're hoping that they can invoke a "right to forget" against the bank's record of their overdraft

  3. helpful, though doesn't mandate the opposite by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Key to the opinion seems to be that it conflicts with existing EU law to mandate data-retention at the EU level. The opinion however leaves open the possibility that individual member states could choose to adopt data-retention rules in their national law... so it doesn't say that data-retention mandates necessarily conflict with rights guaranteed in Europe, either. One of the things that seems to have particularly discomfited the opinion-writer is that implementing this kind of thing as an EU-wide mandate frustrates the ability of individual member states to issue more narrow mandates that keep data within their borders and have stronger privacy protections.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    1. Re:helpful, though doesn't mandate the opposite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One interesting detail is that the European Commission fined Sweden 3 million euro for not implementing the data-retention law in a timely fashion.
      If the EU can't mandate data-retention then this fine was erroneous and should be repaid.
      Another side effect is that those in power can't blame the EU for their respective data retention law anymore.

  4. Interim ruling? by pr100 · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure that the Advocate General's opinion is properly described as an interim ruling - that suggest a court ruling which has some legal force pending a full trial. The AG's opinion is there to help the court make its decision, but doesn't have any legal force of itself.

    As the summary says, its usual for the court to follow the opinion of the AG, but it doesn't always happen.