In a judgment released on Tuesday, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that the general personal data collecting of all the bloc's citizens, under the guise of fending against terrorism, is illegal. "EU law precludes national legislation which provides, on a preventative basis, for the purposes of combating serious crime and preventing serious threats to public security, for the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data," the ruling read.
The court noted that such data collection can only be justified in a situation where a Member State is experiencing a "serious threat to national security" that is proven to be "genuine and present or foreseeable." Should this be the case, "such an instruction must be subject to effective review, either by a court or by an independent administrative body," and can be approved only for a limited time period.
