German cabinet adopts revised data retention law

The German cabinet agreed Wednesday on a draft law on data retention for police probes into severe crimes.

The revised legislation on data retention requires telecom operators to keep customers' data for up to 10 weeks. This includes computer IP addresses, telephone connection data and mobile phone location data. E-mail traffic related data will not be retained.

Location details of mobile phone calls are to be deleted after four weeks, the remaining data after 10 weeks. The draft law doesn't foresee retention of the content of communications.

Police and other authorities will only have legal access to the data as part of investigations into serious crimes, including terrorism, murders and sexual abuse.

In 2010, Germany's constitutional court declared the German data retention law, which was based on a 2006 EU directive, to be in breach of the German charter.

Germany's veto is followed at the European level. Last year, the EU's top court blocked the former EU data retention directive because it breached fundamental rights, and demanded revisions that provide more data privacy and lesser intervention by authorities.

European commissioners have since debated whether to submit a revised directive, such as the one Germany is working on. Endit