On 18 november an opinion of Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona on retention of traffic and location data for the Court of Justice of the European Union was published. In this opinion he reiterates that the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data relating to electronic communications is permitted only in the event of a serious threat to national security.

The Advocate General in Joined Cases C‑793/19 and C‑794/19 (Germany) suggests the following reply to the Court:

Article 15(1) of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, in conjunction with Articles 7, 8 and 11 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 4(2) TEU, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which obliges providers of publicly available electronic communications services to retain traffic and location data of end users of those services on a precautionary, general and indiscriminate basis for purposes other than that of safeguarding national security in the face of a serious threat that is shown to be genuine and present or foreseeable.

More information:

• Press release, English.
• Advocate General’s Opinion in Joined Cases C-793/19 SpaceNet and C-794/19 Telekom Deutschland: English.
• Case file Joined Cases C-793/19 SpaceNet.