Brussels, 14/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 14 July in a press release, Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the announcement by the United Kingdom of an emergency vote on telecoms data retention, in response to the invalidation last April by the European Court of Justice of the European directive on data retention. HRW said that the emergency law undermines privacy. This organisation believes that the law drafted by the British government even goes further than the law introduced by the Court with its judgment and extends the government's powers of surveillance. HRW believes that it is shocking that rather than reform its laws to respond to concerns about mass surveillance, the British government is renewing its powers on the communications of people who are not suspected of any breach of the law.
On Thursday, 10 July, the British government announced that it intended speedily to restore its powers regarding the surveillance of personal data, following the quashing of the European law requiring the conservation of communications for a minimum six-month period. Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that the government was “forced to act” and act quickly to tackle the legal shortcoming created by the invalidation of the European law in April. The draft law, which has the backing of the three main political parties could be adopted this week.
The European Commission has not taken a position on this law but pointed out that the Court had totally invalidated this directive and that it was up to member states to respond as they deemed necessary. The possibility of proposing a new directive on the subject will also fall to the new Commission, said Cecilia Malmström, who is currently in charge of this dossier. At the beginning of June in Luxembourg, ministers for home affairs from the EU28 held an exchange of views on how to approach this directive, pitting two “clans” against one other: supporters, such as the United Kingdom, who wanted to put such a mechanism on the table as soon as possible and those who were more concerned about examining the consequences of the Court decision. (SP)