My preliminary thoughts on our data retention victory, in yesterday's Irish Independent:
Full text.This is a significant decision for Irish law. The Digital Rights Ireland case will now return to the High Court in Dublin which will decide whether Irish data retention law is unconstitutional in light of the European Court of Justice ruling.
It is difficult to see how the national law implementing the directive can stand up to challenge now that the directive itself has been held invalid. Consequently it is very likely that new Irish legislation will be proposed.
More generally the judgment will have fundamental implications both throughout Europe and worldwide. The decision itself is effective throughout all 28 member states and will provide greater privacy protection for over half a billion EU citizens.
It will almost certainly be followed by more cases in other member states by national civil rights groups challenging local data retention laws. It also comes at a time when data protection law throughout Europe is under review and will help to establish high standards for any new law.
Finally, this is the first major ruling on surveillance following the Edward Snowden revelations and is clearly influenced by the abuses which he exposed. The judgment will be of central importance to other cases, pending against the UK government, challenging internet surveillance by the British intelligence service GCHQ. In effect, the European Court of Justice has set out a position which directly rejects the type of indiscriminate mass surveillance carried out by the US and UK governments as being unacceptable in a democratic society.
