10 November 2020
Ever since 2014, when the Court of Justice of the EU struck down the Data Retention Directive - which required the mandatory retention of telecommunications metadata by service providers, in case it was of interest to law enforcement authorities - member states have been keen to reintroduce an EU-wide retention obligation. The Commission's position has varied over time. A recent study carried out for the Commission, following a request from the Council, looks at the situation in 10 member states and aims to contribute to the arguments for a new EU regime.
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Study on the retention of electronic communications non-content data for law enforcement purposes (pdf):
"This report is the result of the ‘Study on the retention of electronic communications noncontent data for law enforcement purposes (HOME/2016/FW/LECO/0001)’ (the Study) carried out by Milieu Consulting SRL for the Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, Directorate D – Law Enforcement and Security, Unit D.4 – Cybercrime. The overall objective of this Study is to collect information on the legal framework and practices for retention of and access to electronic communications noncontent data (also known as metadata) in 10 selected Member States – Austria, Estonia, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. The Study investigates the regulatory framework, practices, needs and challenges of electronic communications service providers (ESPs) and law enforcement authorities (LEAs) through extensive desk research and targeted stakeholder consultation. That consultation included selected Over-the-Top service providers (OTTs) and national authorities - both national telecommunication regulatory authorities (NRAs) and national data protection supervisory authorities (DPAs)."
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