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Deutsch: EU-Ministerrat diskutiert Vorratsdaten

The EU Council Working Group of Justice and Home Affairs had a first discussion on 12 May 2011 on the European Commission implementation report on the data retention directive.

The Commission agreed that the implementation has been uneven, both in terms of retention periods, as well as in respecting data protection principles. The working group discussed issues related to a common definition of "organised crime", that was opposed by some, on the basis of infringing the rights of Member States to govern their own affairs on entirely internal processes ("subsidiarity").

This was just a preliminary discussion, where some member states claimed that data retention was necessary, favouring a two year retention period. Only a few countries brought forward the idea of the "quick freeze" as an alternative solution.

The next schedule presented by the Commission includes several public meetings, the first with civil society on 8 June 2011. After that, the impact assessment should be finalized after the Summer and, by the end of 2011, the European Commission wishes to present its proposal to amend the data retention directive.

Press release: 3085th Council meeting - Justice and Home Affairs (12.05.2011)
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/NewsWord/en/jha/121967.doc

EDRi-gram: Top 10 misleading statements of the European Commission on data retention (20.04.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.8/data-retention-evaluation