Data Retention Directive
Under the directive, the police and security agencies would have been able to request access to details such as IP addresses and time of use of every email, phone call and text message sent or received.[1][2][3] In September 2005, during the United Kingdom's presidency of the European Council, a plenary session was held concerning the retention of telecommunications data, chaired by the UK's Home Secretary.[13] The Data Retention Directive had sparked serious concerns from physicians, journalists, privacy and human rights groups, unions, IT security firms and legal experts.The Council's Legal Services have been reported to have stated in closed session that paragraph 59 of the European Court of Justice's ruling "suggests that general and blanket data retention is no longer possible".[15] A legal opinion funded by the Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament found that the blanket retention of data of unsuspicious persons generally violates the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, both in regard to national telecommunications data retention laws and to similar EU data retention schemes (Passenger name records, Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, Terrorist Finance Tracking System, law enforcement access to the Entry-Exit-System, Eurodac, Visa Information System).