More than two years after the national law transposing the EU Data Retention Directive was annulled by the German Federal Constitutional Court, Germany has still not complied with the Directive. As a result, today the Commission referred the country to the European Court of Justice, requesting it to impose financial penalties.
The Data Retention Directive makes it mandatory for telephone companies and Internet service providers to store telecommunications traffic and location data for law enforcement purposes. Ongoing delays in transposing the Directive into national law are likely to have a negative effect on the internal market for electronic communications and on the ability of police and justice authorities to detect, investigate and prosecute serious crime.
The German national law transposing the Directive was annulled by the German Federal Constitutional Court on 2 March 2010. Germany has been given a considerable amount of time to transpose the Directive into national law. Yet, even though none of the conclusions of the Courts’ judgment preclude full transposition of the Directive in a way that complies with the national Constitution, no new legislation has been adopted since. Here to read more.
