On Wednesday morning 13 July 2005 UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke met with the European Parliament Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). His plan to push through data retention during the UK presidency of the European Council, no matter in what pillar, met with great protest. The Social-Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals all referred to the legal advices recommending the issue should be dealt with in the first pillar, i.e. on a directive proposal from the European Commission and with full co-decision from the European Parliament. The liberal rapporteur on data retention, Alexander Alvaro, perhaps used the strongest words when he said "the LIBE Committee was not to be pushed into blind obedience" by the UK.

The influential social-democrat vice-president of the committee, Stavros Lambrinidis, added some very sharp questions about the lack of proof of the effectiveness of biometrics, of ID cards and of data retention. He also questioned the intentions of the JHA Council to deal with data retention without the full democratic scrutiny. Clarke said it didn't matter to him how the decision would be taken, as long as it was during the UK presidency, i.e. before 31 December 2005. He also explained he reached agreement with the European Commissioner for Justice, Frattini, to jointly work out a proposal that could be adopted within that timeframe. He didn't explain how he would deal with a possible rejection by the European Parliament. The group coordinator from the Greens, Kathalijne Buitenweg, immediately reminded Clarke the Parliament would take the Council to court if they proceeded on the third pillar path.

EDRI press release
Tuesday 12 July, 13.00 PM

European Digital Rights and Privacy International have sent an urgent letter today to the UK Presidency and the European Commissioners for Justice and Media to show restraint in tomorrow's extraordinary JHA Council. EDRI expects the UK Presidency to table a new urgent procedure for the proposal on telecommunication data retention, bypassing the European Commission and the European Parliament.

After informal participation to the last meeting of the Multidisciplinary Ad-hoc Committee of Experts on the Information Society (CAHSI), EDRI was granted observer status to the Council of Europe group of Specialists on Human Rights in the Information Society (MM-S-IS).

On behalf of European Digital Rights, Meryem Marzouki from the French digital rights organisation IRIS presented EDRI activities at the CDMC (Steering Committee on Medias and Communications, under the CoE Human Rights DG) plenary meeting on 23 June 2005.

The CAHSI was an ad hoc committee, which mandate ends in 2005. Its main role was to prepare a political statement on the principles and guidelines for ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law in the information society (see EDRI-gram 3.8). This statement was adopted by the

According to the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), severe threats to freedom of expression and freedom of the press may occur if the European Parliament adopts Article 6 of the draft Rome II Treaty as modified by the EP Legal Affairs Committee on 21 June 2005. The rapporteur was Diana Wallis, ALDE UK MEP. The EP Plenary vote in the first reading is scheduled for 6 July 2005. After the final adoption in the co-decision procedure, Rome II will determine the law applicable to non-contractual obligations, thus regulating judicial co-operation in civil and commercial matters.

But the Rome II draft also regulates the law applicable in case of violations of privacy and rights relating to the personality (Article 6, which applies e.g. in defamation cases). This article provides for

On 22 June 2005 the Dutch Erasmus University published a report about the usefulness and necessity of data retention for law enforcement purposes. The report is the first public research in Europe into the actual use by law enforcement of historical traffic data.

The researchers looked at 65 police investigations that were provided by the Dutch ministry of justice as good examples of the usefulness for traffic data for law enforcement. They conclude 'in virtually all cases' the police could get all the traffic data they needed, based on average availability of telephony traffic data of 3 months. The researchers also warn they can't qualify the usefulness of these data as direct or indirect evidence, or the representativeness of the sample of cases for law enforcement in general.

Behind closed doors most EU member states have already rejected almost all the amendments on the software patent directive put forward by the European Parliament. On 20/21 June the EP commission on legal affairs (JURI) will vote on the 256 proposed amendments and on 6 July the EP will vote in plenary. In order to immediately proceed with the directive after the plenary vote, the member states are already deciding their joint position.

The Foundation for a free information infrastructure has obtained the minutes from a secret meeting on 27 May 2005 from the representatives of the member states. The Luxemburg presidency explained the nature of the meeting: to find out "which amendments a member state can not accept and which amendments could be acceptable as a compromise."

FFII reports: "Some delegations even mention the potential use of meaningless or even confusing (but non-limiting) amendments for 'negotiation situations' with the EP. The European Parliament has only two choices if it wants to have some say in the rest of the process. The first possibility is approval of all key amendments which limit the scope of the directive. Just one of those may be enough to reach Conciliation (the official discussion between the EP, Council and Commission after the Council's second reading), but is insufficient for a strong negotiation position. If Parliament wants to continue the procedure, without such a steadfast position it could just as well save time by simply approving the current Council text. The second possibility is outright rejection."

By massive raise of hands on 7 June 2005 the European Parliament adopted the very critical report of Alexander Alvaro on the proposal for mandatory data retention. The European Parliament thus sent a clear signal to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs ministers that they completely reject the current approach in the third pillar. Under this procedure, the European Parliament only has an advisory role, but no power to amend or reject a proposal. The JHA Council immediately responded in the EP that they would not withdraw the draft framework decision but continue to work on it.

According to the report about the meeting of the JHA Council the ministers reached agreement on mandatory data retention, in principle for 1 year for all kinds of data, both for data that are already processed as well as for data that are only generated but never used by providers, for the purpose of investigation, detection and prosecution of all kinds of criminal offences.

The Open Letter to the European Parliament on data retention from EDRI, Privacy International and Statewatch is now available in 4 languages.

The Open Letter in English

Lettre Ouverte Version Française

Offener Brief auf Deutsch

Carta abierta en Espanol