Sweden obliged by EU to implement data retention directive
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Deutsch: [EU zwingt Schweden, die Richtlinie zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung umzusetzen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1470]
The European Commission has decided to take the Swedish Government to the
European court of Justice for failing to implement the data retention
directive in a reasonable time frame.
The Swedish Data Retention Directive implementation was supported by former
Social Democratic justice minister Thomas Bodström, but now it is not on the
top favourite list for the current Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask. She
estimated for the newspaper Svenska Dagladet that a draft bill would be
ready in the next couple of months. The draft will ask for a 6-month period
of traffic data retention for ISPs and telecom operators.
Privacy on the Internet is a hot topic in Sweden, after the recent court
decision in The PirateBay case. Currently, several ISPs such as Bahnhof are
deleting their traffic data on a regular basis, in order not to have
problems with the local implementation of the IPRED directive. The
implementation of the data retention directive might change that, although
these data should be accessible only for “serious crimes” that might not
include copyright infringement.
In an article for the newspaper Svenska Dagladet, Camilla Lindberg, a member
of the Swedish Parliament for the Liberal Party, and Erik Josefsson, a
candidate for the European Parliament for the Left Party, claimed that
Sweden would show real European leadership if it checked whether the data
retention
directive was consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. Both
conclude that the “directive is a bad and expensive tool when it comes to
protecting citizen freedoms and rights.” Lindberg and Josefsson also argued
that the directive breached the European Convention on Human Rights, and
that the European Court of Justice would agree on this point, if it
discussed the case on privacy grounds.
But Sweden is not the only country delayed in the implementation of an
unpopular data retention directive with Austria, Greece, Ireland, the
Netherlands and Poland lagging behind the official deadline. But Ireland has
just published its draft data retention implementation law, while the Dutch Senate has been very critical to the local
implementation, as far as the discussions on 6 and 7 July reveal.
Sweden challenges EU data retention directive (27.05.2009)
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133566/Sweden_challenges_EU_data_retention_directive
EU sues Sweden, demands law requiring ISPs to retain data (27.05.2009)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/eu-sues-sweden-demands-law-requiring-isps-to-retain-data.ars
Sweden sued over EU data directive inaction (26.05.2009)
http://www.thelocal.se/19680/20090526/
EDRi-gram: Irish Data Retention Bill published (15.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.14/ireland-data-retention-act