Journal of the Charles University Law Faculty
Jaroslav Denemark
Author’s affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague
Does Czech data retention legislation contravene EU law?
Jurisprudence 6/2022 Section: Articles Page: 1-14
Keywords: Data Retention, Electronic Communications Act, traffic and location data, Court of Justice of the European Union
Abstract: The obligation of telecommunications network operators to retain traffic and location data had already been known to the Czech legal system before the infamous data retention directive came into force. The original data retention legislation was even repealed by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic before the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, popularly called Digital Rights Ireland. However, the new version of the legislation was reviewed again by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, but this time the legislation was found to be in line with the constitutional order. However, the question remains whether the Czech legislation is compatible with EU law, as the CJEU has already given some guidance in several cases on the admissibility of the nationwide retention of telecommunications metadata.
