German court finds telecoms storage law incompatible with EU

摘要

A German law requiring ISPs to store data on internet and telephone usage for up to 10 weeks is not compatible with EU law, a court in North Rhine Westphalia has ruled. Under the new law, which came into effect on 1st July, traffic data should be stored for 10 weeks and location data for four weeks, and made available if necessary to German authorities. An IT company from Munich had asked the Cologne Administrative Court for an injunction to allow it to avoid the data storage obligation until a decision is made at an EU level. The Cologne court rejected the request, and it was passed to the North Rhine Westphalia court on appeal.