Dear Micro$oft, The Talk is On and Heads Will Fall

One judge Francis told Microsoft on the 25th April 2014 to get its Global Criminal Compliance Team together and obey a warrant issued for its American headquarters. That district court judge could not care less if the data the warrant demanded was not physically stored within the jurisdiction of the Court. He did not even consider the Hague convention or the fact that the data is stored in the equipment of another company, a subsidiary, based within the EU. He did not even give EU legislation, or the Safe Harbor principles, a glimpse. He cited US law and bluntly told the corporation that if its US headquarters do not impose it on its limbs overseas, it shall be penalised.

That is one cheeky judge – question is, will Microsoft call his bluff? More importantly, what are the implications for the country where the data is physically stored, namely Ireland?

Directive 2006/24/EC: Too Quick To Blow Your Horn!

UPDATE 20/04/2014: A demonstration of EU’s affection towards intelligence agencies. Lovely article by Gavin Sullivan on AlJazeera about the future use of secret intelligence intel as evidence by the CJEU. Do you still believe the EU will attempt to restrict their functions?

Since this morning when the ECJ declared the Data Retention Directive invalid, the view that the invalidity extends to the state functions of the member states slowly began to emerge. I do not understand what caused that impression.

The Directive referred to a blanket retention of all public telecommunications for a period from six months up to two years. The EU Commission promptly issued a memo  concluding that a finding of invalidity of the Directive does not cancel the ability for Member States under the e-Privacy Directive (2002/58/EC) to impose the retention of data. This surprisingly seems to dash the hopes of many.

Data retention under the e-Privacy Dir has to be proportionate to the purpose for which it needs to be performed. It also needs to last a specific (preferably short) term. How can these be compared with the blanket retention the 2006 Directive commanded?