Consequences of the annulment of the european directive on the retention of metadata in electronic communications. A crossroads in the fight against serious crime

Abstract

In 2006, the European Union adopted Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services, to allow law enforcement agencies access to retained traffic and location data generated in electronic communications between European citizens (voice, data and internet), for the purposes of (among others) preventing and combating serious crime. In 2014, the directive was declared invalid by the Court of Justice of the EU, on the grounds that it authorised a particularly serious interference with the fundamental rights enshrined in articles 7 and 8 of the ECHR, without adequately guaranteeing the principles of necessity and proportionality. This ruling has been followed by others, which also affect the national rules transposing the European directive. A solution has not yet been found within the European institutions. In this study, we aim to establish some keys to help resolve this situation.