Google Lobbies for Input into Irish Data Storage Legislation
Irish plans to fast-track a data storage measure on Internet and phone traffic prompted Google to issue a rallying cry Thursday against it. The EU data retention directive “seemed to be going nowhere fast” as member countries missed deadlines for enacting it into national law, European Policy Manager Iarla Flynn wrote on the Google public policy blog. But reports that Ireland is about to follow through raise worries about inadequate debate, he wrote. He urged privacy advocates and service providers to “take advantage of the current window of opportunity” to get their views across.
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The government hopes to adopt the directive before March 31, a Department of Justice spokesman told us. It’s planning to do that by statutory instrument, a legislative process used to carry out EU directives, he said. Parliament doesn’t have a formal role but lawmakers can discuss the measure, he said. The spokesman couldn’t confirm the accuracy of an Irish Times report that the government got a warning from the European Commission about being three months late in adopting the directive.
The proposal caught many by surprise, Flynn wrote. Privacy advocates and telecom providers fear the abbreviated procedure will prevent a full debate on complex issues, he said. And there’s “real risk” that a hastily enacted law would harm consumer privacy and the telecommunications industry, he said. It’s “vital” for their interests to be heard, he said. Paul Durrant, director of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, expressed disappointment that a measure as sweeping as this could be enacted without the “full rigors” of parliamentary debate, the Irish Times said.
Fixed and mobile providers are subject to a national law requiring them, upon police request, to retain traffic or location data or both for three years in criminal matters, Flynn wrote. The legislation is controversial, and the Data Protection Commissioner has criticized the retention periods, he said. The 2006 EU directive broadened storage requirements to cover Internet services, set a retention period of six months to two years, and provided for traffic data in connection with serious crimes.
Both measures are being challenged, the national law by Digital Rights Ireland and the EU directive by the Irish government in the European Court of Justice. The Irish law also has drawn fire from the Data Protection Commissioner, who said adoption of the directive “represents an opportunity” to cut storage times and “confine the right of Garda [police] access to cases of serious crime,” a spokesman said.
It’s unclear when the ECJ will rule on Ireland’s challenge. If the government adopts the directive and DRI’s challenge succeeds, systems adopted under the EU law must be removed, a DRI spokesman said.