On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice declared the
directive n° 2006/24/EC on the retention of data generated or
processed in connection with the provision of publicly available
communications services or of public communications networks and
amending Directive 2005/58/EC (the "Data Retention
Directive") invalid.
The Data Retention Directive required operators to retain
certain categories of data, allowing the identification of users
and the access to details of phone calls and emails, but excluding
their content, during a period of 6 months (as Luxembourg chose to
implement) to 2 years. Such data could then be used by the
public authorities for the prevention, investigation, detection and
prosecution of "serious crimes", as defined by each
Member State.
