Security News > 2020 > January > Top Euro court tells cops, spies that yelling 'national security' isn’t enough to force ISPs to hand over massive piles of people's private data

In a massive win for privacy rights, the advocate general advising the European Court of Justice has said that national security concerns should not override citizens' data privacy.

In essence, the issue was whether national governments can oblige private parties - in this case, mostly ISPs - to hand over personal details by simply saying there were national security issues at hand.

The newly issued opinion follows a long-running battle between the authorities who claims that EU data privacy law doesn't apply to national security - in large part because they want unfettered access to data sources to assist in investigations - and privacy advocates concerned about Europe creating an American mass surveillance system.

Any new law aimed at keeping location and other data will have to be "Carried out in accordance with established procedures for accessing legitimately retained personal data and are subject to the same safeguards."

"Article 4 TEU and Article 1(3) 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 should be interpreted as precluding national legislation which imposes an obligation on providers of electronic communications networks to provide the security and intelligence agencies of a Member State with 'bulk communications data' which entails the prior general and indiscriminate collection of that data."

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/16/ecj_privacy_prelim_ruling/