Data Retention in the EU five years after the Directive

In December 2005, the European Parliament agreed to the data retention directive that introduced mandatory retention of the telecommunications behaviour of half a billion EU citizens and residents. That was a huge disappointment and perceived by many as the final opening of the floodgates. Frank Rieger and Rop Gongrijp at 22C3 even declared that "we lost the war" over privacy. But things turned out different than expected.

Now, five years later, a new privacy movement has risen in Germany and elsewhere, a number of constitutional courts all across Europe have declared national data retention laws illegal, a case against the whole directive is pending at the European Court of Justice, and the EU has a justice commissioner who openly said that she would not have suggested the whole thing in the first place, and a home affairs commissioner who voted against the directive when she was still a Member of Parliament.

The talk will give a full picture of the legal state of play, what is going on in Brussels, what is already being done and of course where you can help. The speakers are all active in European Digital Rights (EDRi.org) and are closely involved in the process on the European and national level.