The storage of traffic data without cause is not compatible with European law.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has lifted the storage of telecommunications data in Germany without cause. The Luxembourg judges declared the so-called data retention in a decision published on Tuesday to be incompatible with European law. The regulation instructed telecommunications providers to store traffic data without cause and to make it available to security authorities if necessary.
The Munich Internet provider SpaceNet AG sued against the regulation and was successful in 2017 before the Cologne Higher Administrative Court. As a result, the German federal government suspended the application, but appealed to the Federal Administrative Court, which referred the case to the ECJ. It is not the first judgment for the ECJ in matters of data retention. The highest EU court has repeatedly had to decide on data retention in recent years. In most cases, he abolished the national regulations or significantly restricted them.
The German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has repeatedly emphasized that she considers data storage to be necessary to investigate serious crimes such as the sexual abuse of children. However, the Ministry of Justice is responsible for the dossier. Department head Marco Buschmann from the FDP takes the position that there can at most be event-related data storage with a judicial decision.
(APA/DPA)