News News Flash - Processing of personal data in the electronic communications sector 08/10/2020

The monitoring and knowledge of the content of the various court decisions that are being issued is not always an easy task. This is the case, above all, when we talk about a topic that remains on the agenda, which is transversal to different areas of activity and which is experiencing developments in an almost daily dynamic: the processing of personal data.

In particular with regard to the processing of personal data in the electronic communications sector, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been ruling in recent years on the retention of personal data and access to such data, maintaining a consistent line of law on this issue, in which stands out the Tele2 Sverige and Watson Judgment of 21 December 2016.

In this article, with regard to the debate on the compatibility between Union law and certain national legal regimes which imposed a general obligation on providers of publicly available electronic communications services to retain data relating to such communications, the requirements which have to be met by national legislation establishing the obligation to retain traffic and location data for further access by public authorities have been set forth, and it has been determined accordingly that national rules cannot impose on such service providers a the obligation for the widespread and undifferentiated retention of personal data, in particular allowing a detailed description of the lives of individuals over a long period of time.

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