EU Commission Issues Proposed Data Retention Directive

On July 27, 2005, the European Commission issued a draft directive on data retention requiring all fixed and mobile telephony traffic and location data from private and legal persons be stored for one year and imposing other requirements on data providers. The European Commission explains that Article 15(1) of Directive 2002/58 provides that EU Members may provide for restrictions of the scope of (among others) Articles 6 and 9 on the processing of traffic and location data generated by the use of electronic communications services when such restrictions constitute a necessary, appropriate and proportionate measure within a democratic society to safeguard national security, defense, public security and the prevention, investigation, direction and prosecution of criminal offenses?[more]