'Victory for Defenders of Privacy': Top EU Court Smacks Down Surveillance Law

In a ruling cheered by privacy advocates, the European Union’s highest court on Tuesday struck down an online data collection directive saying the law trampled on “the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.”

The decision by EU Court of Justice invalidates the controversial 2006 Data Retention Directive, which required telecommunications companies to keep EU citizens’ data for between six months and two years “[b]ecause retention of data has proved to be such a necessary and effective investigative tool for law enforcement in several Member States, and in particular concerning serious matters such as organized crime and terrorism, it is necessary to ensure that retained data are made available to law enforcement authorities for a certain period.”

In its decision, the Court states that “the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data,” and that the fact that the surveilled user may not even be aware of the surveillance could give “the persons concerned a feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance.”

In addition, the bulk collection nature of the directive cannot assure that the surveillance “is actually limited to what is strictly necessary.”

London-based group Privacy International said, “It is right and overdue that this terrible directive was struck down.”

“What the Snowden revelations have showed us over the past year is that the international surveillance apparatus set up by intelligence agencies is in direct conflict with human rights,” the group continued. “If the Data Retention Directive fails to meet the requirements of human rights law, then the mass surveillance programs operated by the US and UK governments must equally be in conflict with the right to privacy.”