The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared the Data Retention Directive to be invalid. The Directive required Irish mobile operators to log details about users’ locations, emails, text messages and internet usage. Bulletin readers will recall the referral of this case by the Irish High Court to the ECJ in 2012 and the resultant opinion of the Advocat General of the ECJ in early 2014. The decision of the ECJ stems from the case of Digital Rights Ireland v Minister for Communication & Ors in which the High Court granted the NGO plaintiff standing in respect of the claims regarding rights to privacy communication.
Click here to read a February 2012 Bulletin article about the High Court Referral to the CJEU.
Click here to read a January 2014 Bulletin article about the Advocat General’s opinion.
In handing down its decision the ECJ said the Directive "interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of data". Furthermore and perhaps marking the fundamental importance of this decision, the Court found that data retention under the directive "entails an interference with the fundamental rights of practically the entire European population".
TJ McIntyre of Digital Rights Ireland said that "this is the first assessment of mass surveillance by a Supreme Court since the Snowden revelations. The ECJ’s judgment finds that untargeted monitoring of the entire population is unacceptable in a democratic society."
Click here to read a summary of the court’s decision in an ECJ press release.
Click here to read the full text of the ECJ's judgment.
Click here to see the full text of the Data Retention Directive.