Judgment on data retention: the state is not allowed to do everything

States want to collect and evaluate data. The ECJ holds against it – and sticks to the principle: The state is there for the people and not vice versa. With all the headwind, a remarkable verdict.

It has long been suspected that Facebook and Co know everything about us anyway. What shoe size we have, who orders baby clothes or what and who we like. So it seems almost touching that the judges in Luxembourg at the EU’s highest court say: The state shouldn’t know everything. He may not collect unlimited data.

It would be dangerous if it were saved on a large scale who called when and from where with whom. And if it were meticulously recorded who surfed the Internet where. Collecting everyday information about almost every citizen without a reason – that’s not possible. Even if, as in Germany, the individual information is only to be kept for a few weeks – these data collections are still dangerous.

The state is there for the people

But it would be wrong to describe this judgment as touching in view of the superior power of the Internet companies. It is extremely commendable that an important authority fundamentally stands before the people: Man should not become an object of the state – not a small beetle whose crawling is observed by a higher authority.

The ECJ judges adhere to the principle: the state is there for the people and not the people for the state. It’s also remarkable that they’re sticking to it, despite the wind blowing in their face in several court cases over the years.

Again and again, the governments of the member states protested most violently in the Luxembourg courtroom: “You can’t ban the storage of all this data! We urgently need it to solve crimes.”

Exceptions are possible

The ECJ judges have moved a bit; some exceptions are allowed. If national security is threatened, it may still be stored. Cell phone numbers may be registered in certain places, such as airports or train stations, where a lot happens.

And in order to get Internet crime under control, it is also permitted to collect the addresses of the computers on the network – the so-called IP addresses. This will probably be the most important point in the future, because since we are almost all online, there is a lot of data that is extremely important for the police.

Which computer initiated what from which house? With this information, the investigators’ work could certainly be made easier.

In addition, there is still the billing data of the telephone and Internet companies. As long as the customers have not yet paid their bills, a public prosecutor’s office could access them via quick freeze, i.e. with a quick order not to delete the data.

The state is not allowed to do everything

Now the German politicians are asked which storages they intend to do with us in detail. In any case, the court has tried to reconcile both: the interests of the citizens and the interests of the investigators. We’ll see how it works in the long run.

The basic message from the judges – the state is not allowed to do everything – proves one thing in any case, and that is reassuring: They sometimes take their task of controlling power quite seriously, even when faced with a lot of criticism.