Made under Article 95 TEC Date made 15 March 2006 | Journal reference L 105, pp. 54-63 Came into force 3 May 2006 | |
Title Directive on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks Made by European Parliament & Council | ||
The Data Retention Directive, more formally "Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC" was a Directive issued by the European Union and related to telecommunications data retention. According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens' telecommunications data for a minimum of 6 months and at most 24 months. Under the directive the police and security agencies will be able to request access to details such as IP address and time of use of every email, phone call and text message sent or received. A permission to access the information will be granted only by a court. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid in response to a case brought by Digital Rights Ireland against the Irish authorities and others.
Contents
History
In September 2005, during the United Kingdom's presidency of the European Council, a plenary session was held concerning the retention of telecommunications data, chaired by the UK's Home Secretary. This led to an agreement reached by the Council at its meeting on the 1st and 2nd of December that was then adopted in March 2006, under the Austrian presidency.
Romania
The EU directive has been transposed into Romanian law as well, initially as Law 298/2008. However, the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) subsequently struck down the law in 2009 as violating constitutional rights. The court held that the transposing act violated the constitutional rights of privacy, of confidentiality in communications, and of free speech. The European Commission has subsequently sued Romania in 2011 for non-implementation, threatening Romania with a fine of 30,000 euros per day. The Romanian parliament passed a new law in 2012, which was signed by president Traian Băsescu in June. The Law 82/2012 has been nicknamed "the Big Brother law" (using the untranslated English expression) by various Romanian non-governmental organizations opposing it, as well as the Romanian media. On July 8th 2014 this law too was declared unconstitutional by the CCR.
Criticism
The Data Retention Directive has sparked serious concerns from physicians, journalists, privacy and human rights groups, unions, IT security firms and legal experts.
Annullment
On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive 2006/24/EC invalid for violating fundamental rights. The Council's Legal Services have been reported to have stated in closed session that paragraph 59 of the European Court of Justice's ruling "suggests that general and blanket data retention is no longer possible". A legal opinion funded by the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament finds that the blanket retention data of unsuspicious persons generally violates the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, both in regard to national telecommunications data retention laws and to similar EU data retention schemes (Passenger name records, Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, Terrorist Finance Tracking System, law enforcement access to the Entry-Exit-System, Eurodac, Visa Information System).