European Parliament rejects EU law on access, retention and storage of sensitive electronic data

The European Parliament has adopted a report rejecting the Council’s proposal for a Draft Framework Decision on the retention of data processed and stored in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or data on public communications networks "for the purpose of prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime and criminal offences including terrorism".

This legislative proposal finds its origins in the critical "Declaration on Combating Terrorism" (Council Document 7764/04 of 28 March 2004) that was adopted after the 11 March 2004 events in Madrid. The main objective of the Framework Decision would be to "facilitate judicial cooperation in criminal matters by approximating Member States’ legislation on the retention of data processed and stored by providers of publicly available electronic communications service for the purpose of prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime or criminal offences including terrorism". The data would broadly include traffic and location information generated by telephony, short message services and internet protocols (including e-mails). The time frame allowed to store this sensitive information is framed inside this legislative proposal for a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 36 months.

The main concerns expressed by the European Parliament are related first to the choice of the legal basis (Art. 31 Treaty on European Union, which deals with "common action on judicial cooperation in criminal matters), and second to the compatibility with the principle of proportionality (in this concern, the rapporteur - Alexander Nuno Navarro - expresses that "the ends do not justify the means, as the measures are neither appropriate nor necessary and are unreasonably harsh towards those concerned", also he continues by saying that "given the volume of data to be retained, particularly internet data, it is unlikely that an appropriate analysis of the data will be at all possible"). Finally the Parliament’s report stresses that the proposal is incompatible with Art. 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to respect private life against the interference by a public authority.

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European Parliament report on data retention