Czech Court Says No To Data Retention Rules

There's been a big push around the globe, mainly by law enforcement but also with a helping hand from the entertainment industry, to force internet service providers to "retain data" for extensive periods of time, for various investigations. I've always been intrigued by the inherent conflict between data retention and privacy -- especially in Europe where they seem to be pushing quite strong for both conflicting concepts at the same time. Apparently, the two have come into legal conflict once again in a courtroom -- this time in the Czech Republic... and privacy has won out yet again.


In a ruling in the Czech Constitutional Court, the country's data retention rules have been ruled illegal, saying that it's a clear privacy violation. As the article notes, other countries, including Germany, Romania, Cyprus and Hungary have all run into similar problems trying to implement the European Data Retention Directive, and Sweden, Greece, Ireland and Austria have refused to implement the rules, because they don't see how it can be done and not violate privacy rules. Perhaps, at some point, the folks who wrote the original directive will realize that it can't be squared with Europe's privacy rules.

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