The Court of Justice of the EU delivered a judgment (case C-162/22) on Thursday 7 September, in which it ruled that the directive on privacy and electronic communications precludes data collected for the purpose of combating serious crime from being used in the context of administrative investigations into corruption in the public sector.
This judgment is in response to questions raised by the Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court, which had received an appeal from a Lithuanian prosecutor who had been dismissed for illegally providing information to a suspect and his lawyer during an investigation.
The prosecutor’s misconduct was established on the basis of data held by electronic communications service providers. In the view of the prosecutor who was disciplined, basing an investigation into corruption-related misconduct on data used to combat serious crime constitutes unjustified interference with the fundamental rights enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Court of Justice of the EU found in his favour. In its view, only the fight against serious crime and the prevention of serious threats to public security can justify serious interference with fundamental rights.
The Court says that traffic and location data retained by providers in accordance with Article 15 of the ePrivacy Directive and intended for use in combating serious crime and made available to the authorities may not subsequently be transmitted to other authorities responsible for investigating administrative errors that are tantamount to corruption “or which are of lesser importance than the fight against crime”.
See the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/8h3 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)