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Data retention in Germany violates EU law, as the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled, thus proving data protectionists’ rights. Nevertheless, data retention also offers advantages.
That is data retention
Data retention is about storing citizens’ communications data for a limited period of time, even if there is no reason to do so.
- Certain data such as location data should be stored for ten weeks with the provider (for example Telekom, Vodafone, O2, or 1&1) in order to be retrieved in case of suspicion.
- A record should be kept of who communicated with whom, when, and where. The specific content of the communication should not be recorded.
- The Telecommunications Act (TKG) should offer the possibility of storage, but this would contradict the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) because providers would be obliged to store data against the will of the users.
- Since 2017, however, data retention had been suspended by a decision of the ECJ.
These are the advantages and disadvantages of data retention
Of course, legislators had their reasons for legislating data retention. However, on 20 September 2022, the ECJ ruled that data retention violates EU law
- In the end, it serves national security if groups of suspected criminals can be identified on the basis of connection data.
- The content of the communications remained untouched during retention and the interception required further judicial permission
- Not least, it is also important that online activities are subject to scrutiny so that not everyone can do what they want.
- On the other hand, data retention is incompatible with the human right to privacy and confidentiality of communications.
- There are costs associated with data retention that is not necessarily justified because the method could not be tested for efficiency.
- Activities abroad are not covered by data retention.
- Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that the retention of connection data would only be the first step toward a control state.
