Murder Probes Get Data-Privacy Ground Rules From Top EU Court
(Bloomberg) -- Murder investigators in the European Union avoided a blanket ban on the use of suspects' phone records even as the bloc's top court confirmed a prohibition on the retention of swathes of citizens' communications data.
The EU Court of Justice said on Tuesday that EU law “precludes the general and indiscriminate” scooping up of traffic and location data by crime agencies. But on the other hand, judges said national rules can allow the “targeted” retention of traffic and location data for “the purposes of combating serious crime and preventing serious threats to public security.”
The Luxembourg-based EU court in a landmark ruling in 2020 said only serious threats to national security should warrant access to phone data stored on a general and indiscriminate basis. That exemption includes terrorism cases, and an EU court adviser in November said it excludes both market-abuse cases and alleged murders.
EU judges weighed in after Irish judges sought guidance in a high-profile murder case that was based on the use of phone records gleaned by police. Graham Dwyer was convicted by an Irish court in 2015 for the murder of Elaine O'Hara, a childcare worker, in 2012. The case quickly earned notoriety in Ireland amid a nine week long trial, with Dwyer's personal life widely publicized, as has been his time in prison.
In Tuesday's judgment, the EU court said “the admissibility of evidence obtained by means of such retention” was a matter of national law.
A spokesman for Ireland's Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the Irish case “will will now revert to the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice will consider, together with the Attorney General's Office, the judgment of the Supreme Court when the case is finalized.”
Inside-Trading Case Into $23 Million Jackpot Hangs by Thread
The EU court's ruling could also offer clues on the outcome in a separate case that will be decisive for one of France's biggest insider-trading probe, where the two main suspects challenged investigators' rights to access their phone records. An adviser to the EU court in November criticized French law at the time for failing to guarantee their privacy rights.
The case is: C-140/20, G.D. v. The Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Ressources, Attorney General.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
