EU Court of Justice rules indiscriminate data retention illegal News
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EU Court of Justice rules indiscriminate data retention illegal

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) Tuesday ruled that Germany’s data retention statute is not compatible with EU law. German telecommunication companies SpaceNet and Telekom Deutschland brought actions in German courts arguing that Germany’s Law on Telecommunications (TKG) breached EU rules.

The TGK law imposed an obligation on telecom operators to retain customers’ traffic data for 10 weeks and location data for four weeks. The ECJ ruled in favor of the telecom operators, stating that “EU law precludes the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data.” However, the court confirmed that exceptions for the retention of data do exist in specific circumstances, such as for “the purposes of prosecuting serious criminal offences or preventing a specific risk to national security.”

The ECJ made a similar ruling against a French law on mass data retention Tuesday. In this case, the ECJ ruled that “general and indiscriminate retention of traffic data” for a year after collection is “not authorised, as a preventive measure, for the purpose of combating market abuse offences including insider dealing.”