Civil society groups European Digital Rights (EDRi) and the Fundamental Rights European Experts Group (FREE) have demanded an end to lawless spying on individuals around the globe. At a meeting with the Chair of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee today, the two groups handed over a document (pdf) containing detailed analysis of the current European and US legal frameworks. The document will be submitted to all relevant policy-making and governmental bodies.

In light of recent revelations, which have profoundly undermined trust in online communications tools, there is an urgent need for transparency, predictability and proportionality.

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Deutsch: Irland: Führend bei der Abfrage von Vorratsdaten

During the ECJ hearing on 9 July 2013 considering the legality of the European Data Retention Directive, it has come out that the Irish authorities are champions in requesting people’s data stored on phone or Internet, having made several times more such requests than other countries comparable in size.

The Data Retention Directive limits the use of such data to combating serious crime and terrorism.

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Deutsch: VDS in Österreich: Auslagern der Speicherverpflichtung an die USA

During the ECJ lawsuit against the data retention (DR) directive it became clear that DR obligations may have been outsourced to contractors, maybe even to US-based companies, thereby giving US authorities potentially unrestricted access to all such retained data.

Austria is one example of EU member state with data retention in place. Therefore, the Austrian NGO Initiative für Netzfreiheit asked the national data protection authority (DPA) whether it could rule out that Austrian service providers have

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Deutsch: Vorratsdaten: "Das Gericht soll zugunsten der Freiheit entscheide...

On 9 July 2013, the European Court of Justice held a hearing before the Grand Chamber on the validity of the data retention directive (2006/24/EC). In line with the questions the involved parties received from the Court, the hearing focused on Art.

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Deutsch: EuGH-Anhörung zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung

On 9 July 2013, the European Court of Justice will have a hearing before the Grand Chamber with two joined cases on the validity of the data retention directive (2006/24/EC).

The two cases were brought by the Irish High Court (C-293/12 Digital Rights Ireland) and by the Austrian Constitutional Court (C-594/12 Seitlinger and Others) and refer to the compatibility of the data retention directive with Articles 7, 8 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The ECJ has advised the parties that the hearing will focus on Arti

According to a series of articles in the Danish edition of Computerworld on 6 May 2013, a Danish mobile phone provider has kept telephone call records since the company started its operations in 2000. The company, Telmore, currently has about 700 000 subscribers and a 10% market share in Denmark. Since 2004, Telmore has been a subsidiary of TDC, the largest Danish telecommunications company.

A 10-year retention period of telephone call records is a blatant violation of the Danish law that transposes the e-privacy directive 2002/58/EC.

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Deutsch: Slowenien: Datenschutzbeauftragter stellt Vorratsdatenspeicherung in F...

The Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia challenged on 19 March 2013 the national implementation of data retention directive before the Constitutional Court.

The Information Commissioner holds that the data retention provisions of the Act on Electronic Communications (ZEKom-1), which came into force on 15 January 2013, do not respect the principle of proportionality and that they have been transposed into the national law in contrast with the provisions of the Data Retenti

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Deutsch: Dänemark: Regierung verschiebt Evaluierung des VDS-Gesetzes

In the coming months, the Danish Parliament will conduct an evaluation and revision of the Danish data retention law which implements directive 2006/24/EC.