The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared the 2006 Data Retention Directive, which has been described as a “snooper’s charter”, illegal, saying that it “interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data”.
The UK Government had been planning to push through a data retention scheme, which would collect and store data from ordinary citizens’ internet and phone use for up to 12 months for later examination.
However, the Home Office will now have to rethink its plans and said after the judgement that it would be considering its implications carefully, as the retention of communications data is fundamental to ensure that law enforcement bodies have the powers they need to investigate crime, protect the public and ensure national security.
The ECJ said that it had weighed the needs of law enforcement to be able to keep and access data when considering the case, which was brought by the Austrian and Irish governments, but judged that “by adopting the Data Retention Principle, the EU legislature has exceeded the limits imposed by compliance with the principle of proportionality.”
The so-called snooper’s charter has been a subject of much controversy since Home Secretary Theresa May announced that she wanted the Government to be able to order internet service providers (ISPs) and phone companies to collect and store data for up to two years, with privacy pressure groups calling the measure out of proportion and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg calling the idea unworkable.
However, the case leaves telecom operators and ISPs in limbo over what to do with the information they hold, so the European Commission has been urged to either amend or scrap the legislation as quickly as possible.